Dáil debates

Tuesday, 3 December 2013

3:55 pm

Photo of Eamon GilmoreEamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is a difference between those who cause a problem and those who solve it. There has been a problem about levels of pay in the section 38 organisations. The Government is addressing it. As Deputy Adams will recall, the issue came to light when a HIQA report was carried out on Tallaght hospital in 2012. Following that, the Minister for Health requested the HSE to carry out a complete analysis of the section 38 bodies to find out what levels of pay are being paid and whether they are compliant with pay guidelines. That is the exercise that is now under way. It is as part of the exercise that the information that has now come into the public domain about the levels of pay paid to various agencies has come to the fore. The issue is being addressed. We are determined to resolve it. To suggest that somehow something is being continued when it is being addressed is quite perverse. The problem is being addressed. It is important in so doing, in particular for charitable organisations which raise a lot of money from voluntary donations, that the confidence of the public in such organisations is not undermined but is maintained in terms of where money that has been donated goes. The Minister for Health is determined that pay in those organisations will be addressed. The issue is being dealt with, and that is why the HSE carried out the exercise in the first place. The process will continue until it has been completed.

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