Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. O'Brien should have been in a position to know that no fee was appropriate and that there would be no cause for any fee for the administration or handling of this pension matter. More to the point, given the fact that the HSE has been immersed in consideration of section 38 organisations, given that audits have been done and given that it has been a matter of public comment, I would have expected that Mr. O'Brien, as the person in charge of human resources, would have been on top of his brief and that he would have been fully conversant with the manner of payment via the Mater for those 180 employees. I find it extraordinary that Mr. O'Brien was not. I find it all the more extraordinary that the meeting concluded in the manner it did, especially in light of the staff in question, the 180 persons who may have wondered what all of this was about and whether they had been contributing to some form of phantom fund. I consider that to be absolutely extraordinary. How long has Mr. O'Brien been in the job?