Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Certainly with the preponderance of the hospitals, money is coming from central government through the Vote for health and maybe through the Vote for the HSE.

Some of it may be coming directly from the Department but a lot of it is going through the HSE. For bodies like the Medical Council, there would be registration fees involved, so they would have income. Maybe the bulk of the money for the Medical Council is coming from registration fees paid by doctors. The same is probably true of nursing and midwifery, for example.

No. 38 is unusual in that it is patients' private moneys, their own private property. It is where individuals are in HSE-run nursing homes or long-stay units and their funds are managed for them by the HSE. While the turnover in the year was €43 million, the balances at end 2023 were about €104 million. There are obviously issues there around safeguarding, appropriate use, assisted decision-making and so on.