John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have to interrupt Dr. McLoughlin. There are 44 agencies, eight of which are compliant. Twelve are non-compliant and 22 say that in their view they are compliant, but Dr. McLoughlin questioned that. There are two others somewhere in the mix, to make up the sum total, but whether they are compliant I do not know. That is a significant number of non-compliant organisations. I understand the assurance Dr. McLoughlin is giving the public as regards the charities, but it is clear to me that down through the years everyone in the system knew what was going on or what was emerging, yet no one dealt with it. The CRC correspondence clearly demonstrates that. If the CRC and other organisations are wrong or not compliant, I have to deal with the current entities. The HSE simply was not compliant. It did not do its job and did not follow up the €2.2 billion of taxpayers' money that is going to these 44 agencies. It is just outrageous that that would have happened. The CRC decided that it was going to question this and the Department entered into correspondence on it.

It would seem there was no willingness on the part of the HSE or the Department of Health to do this. Dr. Ambrose McLoughlin defends the current Minister and current departmental officials. That is not why he is here. He is here because of what happened from 1996 onwards. I know neither Dr. Ambrose McLoughlin nor Mr. Barry O’Brien were in their current positions then but we have to account for it. We have to put in place a system that will account for the taxpayers’ money.

From the time this matter with the Central Remedial Clinic, CRC, was highlighted in 2009, nothing was done until now. There may have been a bit of activity but no action was taken to bring these agencies into line. Now, we are faced with the consequences because there are surely contractual arrangements thrown into the mix. Everyone in the system involved in this is wrong. They did not deal with it or sort it out. They did not examine the audits as they should have. Instead, they allowed the agencies more or less tell them what to do.

The next big question relates to agencies under section 39. It is shocking that the Department of Finance did not know what was going on in these organisations. There should have been some sort of paper trail which would have allowed all these issues to be corrected. If there are governance issues with the CRC and St. Vincent’s, then there are certainly governance issues with the HSE and the Department of Health.

Was any submission on the 2009 charities legislation made by the Department of Health to the Department of Justice and Equality? Was there any call that there should be a regulator for the sector?