Mr. Peter Murphy:

I thank the committee for both of the sessions it has held on this issue and its enthusiasm for seeing this through. My colleagues have highlighted the importance of the forum's being set up and the development of a charter. There are urgent practical day-to-day needs. There is a crisis now. Our organisation will have four years at the current rate before we run out of reserves. What happens then? We have been hearing for years that charities should not hold reserves or have money in their back pockets but what has happened in recent years has shown why organisations like ours planned for a rainy day. That broken process needs to be fixed.

We need to have a full review of how service level agreement, SLA, negotiations are conducted. We need to consider urgently a mechanism whereby full cost recovery is introduced. There is already a system there for it. All these deficits are highlighted in the annual financial monitoring return, AFMR, document which is sent annually to the HSE. The information is there to be examined on an individual organisation basis. It can be compiled pretty easily by any statistician or Excel specialist to understand the extent of those deficits. That needs to be addressed from 2020. Issues around reporting and the suitability of contracts need to be examined urgently. The forum that is proposed is probably the best way to ensure that happens.

A couple of other issues did not come up today, for example, while many compliance and governance activities have been introduced in recent years, everybody would like to see the introduction of supports for the sector to maintain those standards. Board training has been mentioned and I think it is in the independent review group, IRG, report, and there is a really positive recommendation to establish an innovation fund. Organisations like ours drive innovation in service delivery. I could give the committee five examples of things that we want to do that we know would improve service outcomes. That would be an extremely well-subscribed scheme if it was set up because there would be many good projects from the community and voluntary sector.