Mr. Jim Nugent:

There is an unfortunate grey area here, although not from the HSE's point of view. We have staff whom the CEO is managing who are on a higher rate than the chief executive. Some technical, clinical staff may well be on a higher rate than even the manager who is managing them. It is just how the scales worked out. We are trying to bring that back into line with the new scales. It was driven by the new scales and that is fair enough. We are not arguing with the HSE about it. We are like many other organisations. We have a meeting later this week on this very subject with the HSE as a group of organisations and we welcome it because we need to find solutions. It is only fair to say that the arrangements with Mr. Conlan were revisited and we undertook that from 1 October we would work strictly to the actual scale nominated by the HSE. I met Mr. Conlan and asked him voluntarily to make that move.