OLIVERO'Connor flies under the radar in the health debate but he is the man credited with two of the most innovative initiatives in health policy in the last decade.

The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) and the co-location of public and private hospitals are effectively his babies. Both initiatives are controversial, attracting accusations of privatising the sector.

While both ideas were knocking around in health circles for a while, O'Connor, in his capacity as special advisor to Mary Harney, was the person who put flesh on the bones.

He is regarded as something of a Progressive Democrat ideologue, believing in the value of applying freemarket economics to the health service.

While the jury is still out on co-location, supporters of the NTPF point out that in excess of 60,000 patients have been taken from public waiting lists and given private treatment since the policy was introduced. The arguments against it are that the money used for private treatment would be better invested in the public sector, going at least some way towards levelling the playing field for all. At the time of its inception, most of the senior officials in the department were opposed to the policy.

Co-location could turn out to be far more problematic than the NTPF. At the last election, the policy was really all that separated the two electoral blocks in their respective health policies.

Fianna Fail ran with the policy . . . and continue to support it . . . but during the last week of the election, it tripped up some senior party figures.

On RTE's Questions & Answers, Brian Cowen got his sums wrong when outlining the projected costs. Then on the penultimate day of the campaign, three senior ministers were all over the shop at a press conference when asked to cost the policy.

It took an intervention from party economist Colin Hunt to untie the ministerial tongues.

The Green Party was vehemently opposed to co-location, but the policy didn't become a deal-breaker during negotiations to form government, and the Greens are now largely on-side as well.

O'Connor went to work for Harney in January 2001 when she was Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and moved with her to the Department of Health in 2004. Prior to that he spent a decade working as a funds investment manager, economic consultant and journalist. His journalism began with a column in this newspaper and he subsequently wrote for the Irish Times.

Originally from Co Wexford, he is in his late 40s and is described as coming from a Fianna Fail background. Following university, he obtained a position in the Department of Foreign Affairs, working abroad mainly. His last port of call was San Francisco from where he returned to Ireland in 1990. While working in Foreign Affairs, he met his wife, Barbara Jones, who has since risen through the departmental ranks to a senior position. The couple have three children.

Before his arrival as Harney's advisor, the PD health policy centred on universal health insurance cover, a policy subsequently espoused by Labour. O'Connor changed all that, starting with the advent of the NTPF. "He believes in the ethos of the PDs, " one source in the sector says. "A lot of advisors are there just to implement policy, but he is a serious thinker.

He brings a lot of intellectual weight to any discussion."

Along with the late Maurice Roche, O'Connor was in the engine room of policy formation for the PDs during their successful 2002 general election. "They worked really well together, " one party insider remembers. "There was no ego involved and there was a great dynamic between them. Maurice had a very good political eye and Oliver is a very good ideas man. The pair were at the centre of that campaign."

Those who have come into conflict with him point to a "tetchy" side to his personality. "He takes criticism personally, which isn't the most advisable thing in politics, " one source says. He doesn't have a huge number of fans in the medical profession either.

"He is somebody who is used to the fact that he can make nation-defining decisions and never have to account for them, " a medical source says.

"He's a high-end version of Sir Humphrey [the senior civil servant character in the TV series Yes Minister]." Others who know him personally describe him as "intense, very much so at times. But there is a lighter side to him that you wouldn't expect to find in a dry economist."

Away from the grind of health, O'Connor relaxes with his guitar. At a going away do for party press officer Iarla Mongey, O'Connor and Harney's press officer, Mark Costigan . . . a former member of the pub rock band Stepaside . . .embarked on a serious jamming session that had the PDs agog. The pair kept on rockin' in the free-market world right into the early hours.

Harney's political unit in the department is regarded by insiders as being the most powerful brought in by a serving minister. O'Connor is the main man in the unit. Harney relies heavily on his counsel and as a result he wields massive influence on health policy. Whether he can see through the implementation of co-location in the face of mounting opposition remains to be seen.