Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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We are impressed with the work of Dr. Smith we received and we are happy with the report. One issue I would ask her to revisit is the question of whether the FEMPI Act cuts implemented in the case of these additional payments that would have been implemented across the board. I accept she asked for the figures at a point in time but that might place a question mark over the agencies' confirmed compliance. They might have been compliant with public sector pay guidelines but I would be happier if it could also be confirmed they were compliant with the FEMPI Act. Maybe that is something she did not deal with in the audit but it would be helpful.

Let us be clear about this. We all have met some of the 100,000 staff in the HSE who are aghast. I refer to staff on the front line of home help and other areas. I will not go through all of that. They are aghast that somebody at a higher level is getting these top-up payments that are coming from the health budget. In fairness, not only to the public but to the morale within Mr. O'Brien's organisation, they would like to see if they suffered, which word "suffered" I use advisedly, the FEMPI Act cuts that everybody else in the organisation who is being paid out of the health budget had applied to them. Dr. Smith might have to come back to us in that regard.