Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Okay. I am going to leave it at that. I just want to make one final point, which is that the terms of reference did not provide for any attempt to establish accountability and as long as that looseness exists, we will have people going off doing solo runs. I want to pursue that in relation to the accountability board that the Government is supposed to have in place but I will leave it for today.

To return to the Estimates, an ongoing concern many of us have is the amount of money that is being siphoned off from the Department of Health to independent agencies, charities and so on. That seems to be increasing in line with the difficulties in recruiting HSE staff. Where within the Estimates can I find the figure that is being spent on outside agencies and the outsourcing of work which, in my view, should be core HSE or Department work? Where can I find that figure for how much is being spent on charities and various outside agencies?