Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputies are correct. The issue of those working on the housing side of things will come up in a report that we will try to do on broadband and housing, before our periodic report, to deal with these two big issues that we have been dealing with over recent months. We want to flag this issue for the HSE when it comes into the committee. It is clear from the schedule that most of the employees of these organisations are paid for through the HSE and they would be section 39 organisations. There has been much discussion around section 38 organisations but I am aware that the section 39 organisations have improved their corporate governance and that service level agreements are in place across the board. We are, however, back to a situation with the HSE's policy of not providing services such as home help, for example. Everything is done through agencies. Sometimes there are houses with three different agencies providing different levels of home help over the course of one week. Sometimes the agencies cannot recruit staff. The HSE appears to have divested itself of one of its core activities. This is a policy of privatisation, full stop. The HSE has consistently reduced the number of its home help staff over the years and has outsourced the service. Regardless of whether it is policy for the HSE, we will put the value for money issue, in the context of all the outsourced services, onto our agenda for the meeting with the HSE when it comes into the committee before the summer on its annual financial statement. We will have an opportunity to come back to this value for money element though those section 39 organisations. I thank the Deputy for bringing us back to that item.

There is one account to be noted that was laid in the Oireachtas over the past week - members will see that on screen - which is the National Gallery of Ireland, and it is a clear audit opinion. It is very straightforward and we do not have to discuss it. This is noted.

There are no significant changes to the committee's work programme since last week so we will discuss it again after the break. I note that we have agreed to do a report on the broadband issue and the housing issue. I ask the secretariat to have documents sent to members before we return after the Easter break so we can move immediately to clear those, if possible. We can discuss them when we see them. The plan was to get those two sections out of the way and we will then resume our normal periodic report. I am just confirming an earlier decision. The committee will just do its best to clear both of those as early as possible after the break.

There are no other items so I propose to suspend the meeting briefly.