Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I gave Mr. Fraser an example that is in the public domain. In fact, the then Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform's first answer at the Committee of Public Accounts meeting, which makes me even more worried, was that he was not even aware that the commissioners in the OPW made such a banana maths basic mistake that lost €10 million of taxpayers' money and ended up being the subject of a "Prime Time Investigates" programme. Mr. Fraser is not aware of it. The then Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was not aware of it that day and we are here justifying the payment of €81,000.

Let me move on. I can see that I am not going to make any progress here, but I want to make a clear point. The Civil Service, that has nobody in charge and no head to it, has a culture as defined by a man to whom we are after giving an extra €81,000, who has a retirement package worth in excess of €650,000 and €146,000 every year for the rest of his life. He stated that it is okay to make mistakes, it is a learning experience and we do not have a "gotcha" culture.

We keep saying we cannot get talent. Could I suggest, as my learned colleague and friend, the Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, stated earlier, that we might talk to the Brits about how they manage to recruit? They recruited a head of the NHS. I take issue with the Chairman, Deputy Stanley, on his figures being slightly wrong but in the same ballpark. The head of the NHS, Simon Stevens, is paid €242,962.15. He is responsible for 1.4 million staff and many multiples of the budget of the HSE. The permanent secretary at the Department of Health in the UK, Chris Wormald, has 2,160 staff, as opposed to our Department of Health, which has approximately 600, and he is paid €214,920.17. We just cannot find people. Mr. Fraser is on TLAC.