Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Straight away, that tells me that of Rehab's €118 million turnover here in Ireland as per its accounts, €95.5 million comes directly from Departments, which brings Rehab into the position where 81% of its income in Ireland comes directly from the Irish taxpayer. As far as I am concerned, it is a completely different group from that which everybody had understood heretofore.

While Rehab gives those figures on page 16, on the same page it also states that fund-raising and lottery income was another €13.449 million. When I look at the funding Rehab gets directly from the taxpayer of €95.5 million and what it receives from the public through fund-raising of €13.5 million, it comes to €109 million directly from the people of Ireland, most of it through Departments, which is taxpayers' money, and through fund-raising, out of Rehab's turnover in the Republic of Ireland of €118 million. That means 92% of funding of all Rehab's operations in Ireland comes directly from Departments or, in the case of a small portion of it, from the public through fund-raising.

Understandably, in recent weeks, commentators have asked why were we going so hard on Rehab - we had CRC here earlier - and we were saying it gets a significant portion of its income from the taxpayer and we are entitled to follow taxpayers' money. When they now realise that over 80% of all Rehab's income in Ireland comes from the taxpayer and over 92% of it comes from the public through fund-raising and the taxpayer, they will probably think we have been going soft on Rehab, although not these gentlemen. I have great respect for these gentlemen and I am pleased they are here. However, had we started off day one fully appreciating that 90% of all Rehab's income had come from the taxpayer and the public, we would have taken a firmer view with Rehab earlier on. We went a little soft because there was a view that the majority of Rehab's income came from other sources, not from the taxpayer. I want to dispel that view and make clear to the public the reason we are not at all finished is that it is now clear that Rehab is practically, but not officially or in law, a semi-State company. In effect, Rehab is almost a semi-State company. That has not been made clear to anybody up to now.

What disappoints me is that we have umpteen items of correspondence and meetings and how I would see the basic role of Rehab has never been made clear to us up to now. As an organisation that receives practically all its funding as I outlined, we need to be even more intrusive in our work on Rehab than if it were an organisation where less than the majority of its funding came from the State.

Is Rehab satisfied with the figures I quoted?