Mr. Barry O'Brien:

As well as meeting, on a one-to-one basis, the agencies that are identified as being outside the pay policy, we have issued them all with an assurance statement with which they will be required to comply. It covers the financial year 2013 and every year thereafter. It is an absolutely clear and specific public pay policy. Clearly, the service level agreement plus the assurance statement put the responsibility on the board of these organisations to ensure that there is no deviation from public pay policy. Therefore, they will put themselves at risk with the level of funding they are currently in receipt of, as the annual service level agreement and the new assurance statement are the safeguards for the HSE in managing public funds. There is a serious implication if any organisation chooses not to be in full compliance.