Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I have full confidence that the members representing the Committee of Public Accounts on Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, will follow up on this thoroughly. It would be useful to have a note after each of those meetings so that we have a consistent record of who attended and the agenda pursued. It would be helpful for those of us who are not on it. I am not looking for a long note, just the key points.

One of the concerns was about how did this happen. There are different grades of Secretaries Generals. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the Department of Finance and the Department of the Taoiseach were on the top tier. Suddenly the Department of Health - perhaps it should have been at that level – has leapfrogged, very substantially. There was discussion and concern about the knock-on consequences, and that increased salaries have been from the top-down rather than the bottom-up. We know there are many people in various sectors who have been told that there are potential knock-on consequences. We must get to the net point of what the knock-on consequences are here, and we must find out how this came about.

I have full confidence that those who represent the Committee of Public Accounts will follow up on that. The message must go out loud and clear that this will be followed until we are satisfied that we have all the answers on how this came about and what the knock-on consequences might be. I would appreciate it if we could get a note after each of the meetings because it would keep the rest of us in the loop and it would be helpful.