Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the members of the Committee of Public Accounts who are working alongside the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach on this matter.

This is crucially important for all the reasons outlined so far. I am glad to hear that the Minister has, after a little bit of persuasion, agreed to attend. The very fact that he was refusing to in one instance is simply disgraceful. Throughout this process when questions have been raised, either by this committee or on the floor of the Dáil, senior Ministers have responded by implying that anybody who suggested that questions needed to be answered were undermining TLAC's authority to carry out its job and questioning the independence of the TLAC process.

It is imperative that TLAC answers questions on the rationale as to how it came up with the appointment that every single person knew it was going to make back in January or December when it was first announced as a temporary appointment. It is fair that it would answer questions on how that process works to ensure public confidence in it is restored.

Has any further clarification been given as to how that figure was arrived at for the substantial increase in wage level assigned to the Secretary General of the Department of Health? The rationale given in December and January by the Government was that a figure such as this was needed in order to attract the best and the brightest in the world. Little did we know that the best and brightest in the world was just around the corner from us all along in the form of a Secretary General in another Department. Who would have thought it?

We need to get a further rationale as to the basis of that increase and why it was agreed and warranted. Can we get some clarification or indication as to whether the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform sees this increased salary provided for this post as the basis for future pay claims? If and when a vacancy arises in another Department, will this pay scale have any implications for that? All of this is a matter of concern for the Committee of Public Accounts.

I again thank the members of this and the finance committee for working on this to get answers to all of these questions. They are absolutely in the public interest. We need answers. We do not need people involved in this process trying to shirk their responsibility to appear before Oireachtas committees to answer those questions.