Ms Anne Marie Hoey:

In regard to HSE staff and section 38 staff, our own staff are directly on our payroll and we have direct links with the section 38s under the service agreements. Therefore, we had direct visibility in terms of who was eligible for the payment as per the criteria that had been set out and we were able to put in place the payment quite quickly.

As mentioned earlier, 123,000 staff have received that payment at this stage. That number seems to be peaking at that level now and the numbers in the last couple of weeks have reduced to just a trickle. Regarding the third-party agencies, we do not have the same relationship with those agencies in that we do not have visibility of their staff by staff member. We have service level agreements in place with those agencies for the provision of a quantum of service in return for an annual fee or amount of money that is provided. When making the payment to the staff in those agencies, as we do not have that direct relationship we have to engage with them around which of their staff are eligible for the payment. They would have to provide those details to us at a staff member level, as well as the number of staff and so on. When we have that level of detail we will be able to make the payment to the agency and it in turn can make it to the staff member. It is just because of that gap whereby we do not have that direct relationship on our payroll system with those staff.