Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will direct my final point at Mr. O'Brien in the first instance. The HSE has carried out an extensive audit of another disability services provider in my constituency, St. Catherine's Association. This matter has appeared on the front page of a national newspaper on at least two occasions. I am concerned about a couple of aspects of the issue. The HSE seems to have carried out a very extensive audit of how public moneys were spent in this service provider which does a great deal of extremely good work in my constituency. How has an audit report that has not been seen by me or people whose children go to St. Catherine's ended up in the national media? I do not believe it has been published. Given that the audit seems to have appeared in such a comprehensive manner in the national media, I respectfully suggest the HSE look into who is leaking this document and the rationale behind that action. As it has been reported on so significantly, I suggest the HSE publish the audit.

I do not necessarily expect Mr. O'Brien to be able to respond directly to my final point, but I ask him to look into it. In the scenario I have raised the HSE has been providing funding for a service provider for a number of years. The HSE is not suggesting the funding was misappropriated - it is suggesting it was not spent in the manner in which it was meant to be spent. It was spent on services for children with disabilities. I would like to know, from the HSE's control point of view, how it took so many years for it to come across this. Will Mr. O'Brien come back to me with an explanation for how it took so many years for the HSE to discover this issue and carry out an audit? It is doing a huge disservice to the massive amount of work being done to sustain this service provider - the HSE is doing good work at local level to keep the show on the road - that this comprehensive audit report has appeared, in effect, in a national newspaper. I am concerned about the leaking of this document.