Mr. Peter Murphy:

It is a historical issue that goes back to the old health boards. I do not necessarily have access to the history. I can certainly comment on it on the basis of the documents available in our case. In the pre-HSE era so-called section 65 funding under the Health Act 1953 was individually negotiated with each local health board. There seems to have been a system for several years under which service plans were submitted locally for each region around the country. Again, they grew up individually in each region. Around the turn of the century a process called the Harmon review introduced funding arrangements for several smaller community organisations like ourselves. These things all happened piecemeal and led over the years to individual funding amounts. When the HSE was set up and the SLA process began, those amounts transferred over and they have been stationary ever since.