Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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We will obtain an up-to-date report on top-ups because the issue has been ongoing for the past year. I believe we have enough to deal with in that respect.

A number of HSE documents were received yesterday afternoon. These are considerable in volume and most were in hard copy and folder form, rather than in electronic form. From that point of view, they are cumbersome. Listening to the Comptroller and Auditor General, the service level agreements and similar documents should be available for publication. The HSE has asked the committee not to publish any of the documentation before the meeting next Friday. We have to arrange a mechanism to circulate these documents to members in advance of next Friday's meeting because they will have to familiarise themselves with and study them beforehand. It is important to note, however, that they should not be made publicly available during the coming week. The HSE has specifically made this request and we do not want to start our deliberations by failing to comply with a request.

On the internal audit report, the Comptroller and Auditor General indicated that studying these types of report is part of the normal work of the Health Service Executive audit. As it follows directly from the HSE audit, the audit report falls directly within the remit of the committee. I will take questions on the issue because some members will be concerned about some of the contents of the report. Members will have read newspaper reports on the audit report. None of this information has come from the committee, which only received the documents yesterday. I confirm that they have not been circulated to members and that I have not yet had an opportunity to read them.