Mr. Tony O'Brien:

A question was asked about section 39 agencies. It is certainly the case that when public pay was being cut, high-level reductions were made to the gross funding of section 39 agencies as a corollary. In many instances, though not necessarily all, they would have dealt with this by imposing equivalent pay cuts on their staff. As pay has been restored, however, the HSE has not had funding restored in respect of the likely cost of equivalent pay awards in section 39 agencies.

It is not the case that the HSE has made a decision to treat the section 39 agencies differently from others. It is the case that the HSE is the recipient of funding that does not allow it to provide that level of funding to section 39 agencies. Clearly, that is a challenge for those section 39 agencies and for the staff who work in them. Several of those agencies and their staff are engaged with the Workplace Relations Commission and similar processes in an attempt to get decisions. In turn, they will discuss those with us and we, in turn, will discuss them with our funders. We are not unsympathetic to the situation, but, at the same time, there is an equivalent public policy issue. In other words, section 39 agencies are not public bodies and their employees are not public sector employees. The way these things progress could have an impact on the application of that policy.

It is above the HSE's pay grade. I think I would put it that way.