Mr. Tony O'Brien:

There are some outstanding issues being pursued - again, on a co-operative basis - with one or two hospitals. I do not think it would be particularly helpful for me to name them at this point. On the outstanding or nearing completion investigations in relation to the original section 38 audit which relates to remuneration, as the committee will be aware we sought policy guidance in this regard from other relevant Departments. That process was only concluded in the early part of September, with a number of decisions relating to settling the salaries of various posts in section 38 agencies for new entrants, which issue has recently been in the public domain. We are also currently working our way through a process of considering the terms and conditions under which individual post holders - whose salaries were the subject of those audits and that were outside of the norms at that time - to see if they could benefit from red-circling regularisation. The kind of conditions to which I refer include, for example, whether the arrangements were made prior to the passage of the FEMPI legislation in 2010, whether the allowance was subject to the FEMPI reductions and whether the relevant duties are still being performed, etc. We are now, on a case-by-case basis establishing that all the criteria are met before red-circling is granted.