Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Will the witnesses explain to me why one CHO should have to do it? Should that not be a central function? If different CHOs are dealing with it and if the financial statements come in centrally, I would have thought there should be a linkage between whoever signs the national service level agreement - we will call it that and we will take a large organisation - and that that section should get its annual financial statement - I ask the witnesses to let me finish the question so they know where I am coming from. During the course of the summer, the HSE supplied us with information on this. We had asked for it on a previous encounter and we got letters from the HSE during the course of the summer stating that some of the large organisations had not completed signed agreements. As Chairman I made that statement public as a result of the HSE's information, and some of those section 38 or section 39 organisations responded directly - I might have sent the witnesses the information - complaining that they had signed service level agreements in seven of the eight CHOs but there was one outstanding and that this gave the impression that that organisation was outstanding in terms of a service level agreement. I know the HSE does this in two phases and that there is part one and a part two, but surely if the HSE is dealing with an organisation that has a large footprint in several areas, there should be one overall service level agreement because they have only one set of financial statements.