Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 6 December 2018

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:00 am

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will discuss with the Department what particular aspect it has an issue with publishing. For now, we will abide by the Department's request. We will not publish it at this stage.

The next item of correspondence is in category B - correspondence from Accounting Officers and-or Ministers and follow-up to previous Committee of Public Accounts meetings. There is one item, No. 1703 B, held over from the previous meeting. It is from the CEO of the Local Government Management Agency, dated 2 November 2018, in relation to a request from the committee for a copy of its report arising from the value for money review of Irish Public Bodies. The report is subject to a non-disclosure agreement between LGMA, Irish public bodies and PricewaterhouseCoopers dated 2 September 2015. The CEO has written to Irish Public Bodies, IPB, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, PWC, to request their consent for LGMA to release the report to the committee and is awaiting a response. We will keep the committee updated on that. For now, I propose we note and publish that response. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Correspondence No. 1753 B from Mr. Ray Mitchell, assistant national director of the HSE, provides an information note requested by the committee on former Console staff. This is an important piece of correspondence that we want to deal with, if we can call it up on the screens. Essentially, we had asked that compensation be made available on an ex-gratiabasis to staff who were not re-employed. We included it as a recommendation in a previous periodic report. We also asked the Minister to examine the matter. The response is good and I want to put it on the public record. The HSE states that it understands from Pieta House there were 55 pre-existing employees of Console in 2016. The HSE confirmed that it offered 52 contracts to staff previously employed by Console. This comprised ten employees of Console and 42 persons, mainly counsellors, on contracts for services or sessional work with Console. Pieta House did not offer contracts to three former Console employees, who included the former CEO and two others who decided to seek employment elsewhere. Of the 52 contracts that were offered by Pieta House, 47 contracts were accepted comprising ten employees and 37 contracts for service sessional work. Effectively, Pieta House has done as much as the committee was looking for on this. A couple of people who did not work there, and, obviously, the CEO, were not offered contracts. They offered contracts to everybody else, most of whom took them up. As for those who chose to work elsewhere, that is their own affair. It took a long time to get to that point. We have been following this for quite a long time. I acknowledge that it is good to receive that information at this time.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.