Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and the committee secretariat for the proactive way in which they pursued this issue. St. Vincent's has not made it easy to do so. The letter we received from the hospital yesterday borders on a waste of paper in that it refused to provide us with any of the information we sought which was not already in the public domain. Two key questions emerged for me during the course of the meeting yesterday.

One related to the issue of a top up and whether they are in compliance with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform's pay guidelines and the HSE's pay policy. St. Vincent's continues to be the only section 38 organisation in the country that will not divulge the level of private top up it pays its chief executive and two other managers. That is not acceptable. It had a chance to clear it up yesterday. It made us wait all day for this famous letter but when the letter came it did not refer to the issue.

The more serious issue, which was discussed at length here yesterday and which St. Vincent's completely ignored, although I am sure it was monitoring proceedings closely, is whether it is acceptable that the HSE pays a public salary to an individual to run a public hospital on a full-time basis while that official is double jobbing as head of the St. Vincent's Healthcare Group, which includes the private hospital. Who is looking out for the taxpayer and how can a person keep switching hats when he goes into board meetings representing the public interest and the commercial interest of the St. Vincent's Healthcare Group? Perhaps over the Christmas period and before the representatives of St. Vincent's come here on 16 January they can reflect on those matters in an effort to be constructive.