Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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I agree with Deputy Madigan. Her proposal would be useful and it would close the circle on this issue. It would be helpful to fit that somewhere into our programme. It would also be timely because part of the legislation has yet to be commenced. Deputy Cassells and others made the point that as we speak here about what is one of the most talked about issues in Ireland, there is concern among the public about the use of taxpayers' money. In addition, this issue has touched people in the sense that they are concerned on a number of levels, not only about how taxpayers' money is being spent but also about how their voluntary contributions are being spent, about the services being provided and about whether these will continue to be provided into the future. There is a huge level of concern among the public about this issue. We need to ensure that, as a committee representing taxpayers, we get to the bottom of this matter. Then there are all the other issues that are ongoing in respect of the Garda and everything else. We need to be very clear and direct regarding how the HSE is managing its service level agreements with these organisations. There may be - I believe there are - other issues separate from how the money is being spent. I am concerned that there may be issues regarding procurement, how services are being provided and the cost of those services as a result of the way contracts have been managed.

On the management of staff and not just in relation to payment, it is about the use of staff across a number of these organisations as well. We need to dig into those sort of layers comprehensively so that the taxpayer has full knowledge of the bottom line and with what we are dealing here. It is about the level of organisations, volume of issues within them and levels of funds.

The second issue is one on which I compliment Deputy Farrell for taking the initiative to write in advance. It was certainly something we all wanted. It relates to top-up payments. This is a considerable issue on top of the SLA issue with the organisations and the HSE. It is something we need to deal with, but we need to do so separately as there are layers underneath that too. There is a comprehensive amount of work on both of these issues that we need to understand. We also need to respect the other avenues of investigation that are ongoing across the State. We are challenged on behalf of taxpayers with ensuring that we get to the bottom of this quickly.