Mr. Tony O'Brien:

We are in receipt of a letter from St. John of God that tells us that they have a non-compliance with pay policy. We have not used the terminology "top-ups". It is the popular phraseology for payments that might be received that are outside the approvals given in the Department of Health consolidated scales. They are obviously seeking to draw a distinction between an actual salary payment that occurs every month and these payments which, it has been alleged in some media circles, were effectively the advance payment of those. They are clearly stating that they have legal advice and so on.

A procedure was put in place as part of the regularisation and the process of dealing with all of this, which involved the HSE and the two Departments that are here, whereby agencies that wish to seek sanction for buy-outs - special arrangements based on the legal situation in which they found themselves - could in certain circumstances have been approved, all other things being equal. These were not part of that process, so, whatever these payments are, they were not sanctioned or approved in accordance with that process.