Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is an opening opportunity for this committee to address these matters. Along with other colleagues, I only have had sight of the documentation circulated in a relatively short time leading up to today’s meeting. There are many questions. One of the key observations we can make from Ms McGuinness’s presentation is that this ongoing work. Accordingly, our oversight and engagement should be ongoing.
I welcome Ms McGuinness and her colleagues from the HSE and thank them for their presentation. I am conscious that this is the first opportunity the committee has had to address these very important matters. I record that fact with some degree of disappointment in that we have not had that opportunity previously but that is no reflection on the delegation.
Several questions are pertinent but it will become apparent that this committee’s critical concern, I expect, given that others have a focus on matters that have had quite an amount of media attention over the past period, is the impact of all of this on service provision and the needs of service-users across the range of services provided by section 38 and 39 agencies. For me, of fundamental importance at this point is the impact of all that has been exposed, as well as its impact on the services provided and on the trust and confidence the wider citizen has in many of the entities involved.
There are 44 section 38 entities out of some 1,900 agencies funded by the HSE to one extent or another. While it is a small number, 143 business cases have been received relating to specific areas of pay and remuneration in excess of the stated policy figure. Many terms such as “red-circling” creep into documents such as this opening statement. Will Ms McGuinness explain for the record what it actually entails and the accurate read into what it would translate?
An interim administrator was appointed by the HSE to the Central Remedial Clinic, CRC, and a report on matters there was published in May. This opening statement refers to eight of the cases involved there. Can Ms McGuinness speak specifically to the process involved and how it differs in terms of its set-aside and address in the other cases that have been presented?
The critical distinction is that section 38 agencies are directly bound by the Department of Health consolidated salary scales while employees of section 39 agencies are not public servants. What the HSE is asking is that they would act in compliance but there is no means of enforcement. Can Ms McGuinness give us an update on her expectation of compliance, given that under section 38 and the red-circling process that there will be those excused for the period of their tenure but it will change on their departure, whatever the circumstances, be it retirement or whatever else? Exceptions are being made because of the terms of contract. What prospect or hope have we of section 39 compliance when people expected to be fully complaint because of their employment under section 38 terms will be excused? To me as a layperson, there is a degree of inordinate flexibility that should not apply. Will Ms McGuinness elaborate on the type of exceptions she is accepting, as well as the legal advices being submitted in tandem with these applications? This would give the committee a sense of the actual process in which she is engaged along with her colleagues, Mr. O’Brien, Mr. Carter and Mr. Healy.
Another committee of the Houses is dealing in an ongoing way with much of the matters that have been at the core of public attention concerning these entities. We have the report of the interim administrator of the CRC, as well as a range of other paperwork before us today. The interim administrator recommended:

The CRC should publish an annual report giving comprehensive details of the CRC activities, services, funds or fund-raising sources.

Again, I would like to ask the following. Has there been any process of assessment of the impact on service provision year-on-year into the current year and going forward? That is an exercise that I believe is hugely important. Out of all of this has there been any impairment in terms of the opportunity of any of the entities concerned in carrying out the functions and responsibilities that they had either invested on them or taken upon themselves? Has the HSE a programme in place to establish the throughputs and satisfaction of service users, and the ability of the 1,900 entities, to perform the roles they have set to themselves or been asked to carry out?