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

There is nothing in Standing Orders, but generally the lead speaker gets 20 minutes, the second speaker gets 15 minutes and thereafter the speakers get ten minutes. In cases, where the speaker is engaged in an exchange with the Accounting Officer, I sometimes let the discussion run because Accounting Officers, as we have seen, often answer in a long-winded fashion. That eats into the time of the member, so I use my discretion to allow the member in possession some time for questions. If a member has a number of questions on a particular line with the Accounting Officer, it is fair to let him or her finish out the line of questioning.

The first item is the minutes of the meeting of 27 February 2014 with Rehab. We have received legal advice on the discussion and the papers at that meeting. Let me make it clear that we have requested a significant amount of information listed under 12 different headings as well as requests for information from the Department of Justice and Equality and SOLAS. We have requested that this information be provided to the committee within a two-week period.

Heading No. 12 is a request for information on the remuneration levels paid to all staff, who are paid a salary equivalent to or above the salary of grade 8 of the consolidated pay scales. We asked for that information last week and I felt that we had the agreement of Rehab to release that information to us within days. To date, Rehab has not released the information. I think we should remind them that they did inform the committee that the details would be made public. We have taken legal advice on the documents referred to by the HSE and have asked for the material in the correspondence to be made available to us in an unredacted form so that we can view the correspondence between Rehab and the HSE. I understand that part of that correspondence contains details of salaries and as part of the legal advice this morning, we have requested that as much information as is possible should be given to the committee in an unredacted form. The work of the committee on Rehab has not concluded. The information is essential in the context of the examination of section 39 organisations. Information is required and new information has emerged and we want to examine it in detail. If we need to have a meeting in public session to do so, so be it. We have sought legal advice so that we are clear on what we do. I think members will agree that should be the course of action.