Mr. Hamilton Goulding:

It is an interesting angle from which to come at the issue. I set in train the course of events that ended in the departure of Mr. Kiely, of whom I had a sort of split view. From one perspective I admired him greatly because of his capability. I am sure he saved the clinic an awful lot of money, undoubtedly many times more than what he was paid. He had extraordinary anticipation and initiative. On many occasions when an issue was brought to the board, by the time someone had asked him a question about it he could say he had already fixed it last week. On the one hand, his performance was extraordinarily good. I had a different view, however, in regard to his salary. In my view, people's salaries should be paid, first of all, on the basis of their performance - that is obvious - and, second and to some extent, the ability of their employer to pay. In this case, the overriding factor was the sector we were in, namely, the charitable sector. As the Deputy said, popular opinion, with some good reason, does not like and will not tolerate the payment of very high salaries in that sector.

The successes of the clinic have been acknowledged by everybody here. Those types of successes do not come without sound management from the top, good guidelines and good executive control. The CRC managed its budgets perfectly for many years. In fact, it hardly ever ran an annual deficit of more than a minute amount and never, as many other organisations did, ran cumulative deficits. The cost of the senior management group we are talking about was €1.82 million in 2004 but had reduced to €914,000 in 2012. In other words, the cost of senior management at the clinic halved in that period. By that time, moreover, the CEO had taken on the duties and responsibilities of two, possibly three, other people. He was, in effect, doing three and maybe even four jobs.

The international standing of the clinic was widely recognised as delivering a service that was as good as any, not just in Ireland or the UK but throughout Europe and beyond. The clinic did not achieve what it did by not going beyond the Irish Sea. We attended conferences elsewhere and hosted them here in Ireland. The last one we organised was attended by people from 30 different countries, including Australia, India and South America. In the course of those conferences attendees saw that the treatments, techniques and equipment being used in the CRC for the benefit of Irish people with disabilities were as good as anywhere in the world. In 2012, the CRC undertook a customer satisfaction survey, the results of which were phenomenally good. There were criticisms, of course, as there always will be, but many of the categories scored in the 90s for positive feedback.

I am making all these points in order to highlight that much of the excellence of the clinic, as with any organisation, comes from the top and is a consequence of the way in which it is managed. If we had been engaged in an industrial production type of activity where we were in business for profit, it might not have been unreasonable to suggest that Mr. Kiely should get a pay rise. The reason I personally thought his salary was completely inappropriate was that we are a charity organisation, not because we are publicly funded.