Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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That is right. We recognise there is an issue here. The Chairman made a good point that in circumstances where State moneys are provided to an organisation that also receives charitable donations and perhaps private income, the committee has found it almost impossible to disaggregate the figures and demonstrate that public moneys were used for a certain purpose alone. Financial officers conceded the point that everything went into one pot, which means nobody could credibly argue that public money was not being used for top-ups or whatever the case may be. This is extremely problematic and needs to be addressed.

My principal concern is that the committee needs to be able to credibly demonstrate to members of the public that we have a handle on and proper oversight of section 38 and 39 organisations. We should not pick up the newspaper some morning to discover there has been a HSE audit and we are dealing with another car crash scenario because these issues have a debilitating effect. While I accept that we have the elements described in place, work needs to be done to string them together and ensure the committee and others have controls and oversight over the sector and there is compliance. Instead of dealing with the section 38 and 39 organisations singly and in a piecemeal fashion, we must find a way to resolve the issues that have presented themselves.