Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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At my request they have given us a list of 25 agencies with section 39 agreements with the HSE, each of which receives over €5 million. We wanted to have an indication of the other organisations such as Rehab Care, etc. I was surprised to see that there are 25 organisations receiving €344,699 between them. In case anyone would think we are picking on Rehab or any other organisation, I believe we should write to each of those 25 organisations asking for the full remuneration package of the chief executive and of anyone earning more than €150,000 - as requested from Rehab - and the number of people receiving salaries between €100,000, €120,000 to €150,000. Enable Ireland receives €36 million, the Irish Wheelchair Association receives €36 million and Western Care receives €27 million. This is a phenomenal amount of money which is taxpayers' money and which is being given by the HSE. In our view they should comply with public sector pay guidelines if they are in receipt of such money. I am surprised that some of those organisations are what we know as out-of-hours and GP services. One such organisation receives €8 million and another receives €7.3 million for the out-of-hours GP service. I know much of the money goes to the doctors and drivers and administrative staff but for us to be effective in our job we should write to all those 25 organisations who are all in receipt of substantial payments of taxpayers' money and ask for details of the remuneration packages of the senior people. It is a full 12 months - March of last year - since the HSE produced its internal audit report on the section 38 bodies. We have not got to the end of it after 12 months. I do not want to spend another 12 months getting to the end of the section 39 organisations. I am starting with those in receipt of over €5 million although some might argue I should start at a lower amount but in my view this is a good starting point. It is in the public interest to find out. We may find out that they are all in receipt of reasonable salaries in line with public sector pay guidelines. If that is the case we would be very happy with that situation and I think we should do that.