Mr. Barry O'Brien:

I am not saying what the number is, because each case is complex and we are dealing with them one by one. I could not say how many will or will not be valid. I wish to stress that we have a responsibility to implement Government pay policy. It will be the Department of Health, and where appropriate the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, which will decide whether these cases should be red circled. I reiterate that if we have sound legal advice that a case should be red circled, it would be prudent not to incur further liabilities for taxpayers by pursuing legally a case there is no chance of winning. By September, we should have completed the exercise, implemented the 22 recommendations of the internal audit and achieved clarity in regard to Government pay policy.

In regard to section 39 agencies, we have included in our service level arrangement a requirement which deals with their overall approach to pay. I have written to all of them pointing out they need to have full and due regard for Government pay policy. This fully encompasses the need for pay to reflect the size, scale and complexity of the organisation, the number of employees, the level of service, the complexity of the clients and the fact there are benchmarks in regard to section 38 agencies and on the statutory side which would provide a good basis as to the rate of pay that should be paid to senior people.

A question was asked about pay for other general workers. When we engage with section 39 agencies on budgetary allocations and the annual service plans, we take the approach that while these are not public servants or members of public service pension arrangements, they should apply the terms of the public service agreement, initially the Croke Park agreement but now the Haddington Road agreement. We have asked all the section 39 agencies to ensure the nurse they employ works the additional hour and a half that all the nurses in section 38 agencies and the statutory sector work to provide the same value for money.

Therefore, our approach is that there is capacity to achieve savings out of the pay bill, without any impact on service delivery or overall quality of service. We have taken a consistent, even-handed approach with all the section 39 agencies in seeking this. We have made it very clear that we do not see it as the first port of call that there must be a service reduction to deliver the required cash saving, when there is the exact same capacity as the section 38 agencies to achieve it under the Haddington Road agreement provisions.