Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 3 July 2014

Public Accounts Committee

2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration

11:10 am

Mr. Hamilton Goulding:

I believe is does. A confidentiality clause, as I understand it, means it is confidential and it is not to be revealed to anybody, but I also understand, when the Deputy is talking about that particular issue, why people have queried that that was a strange thing to put in. My understanding is that when lawyers write voluntary severance packages, that is purely a routine matter. It was not an unusual thing to come in. I said: "Why is this there?" They said: "That's always there." The terms of that, as I understood it, mean that when one is told something is confidential, as far as I would understand that, it would mean that one would not reveal it to anybody.