Results 13,921-13,940 of 21,206 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Is is Mr. Cregan's argument that it is the path of least resistance?

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Although Mr. Cregan has carried out his work very diligently, I think he has agreed with me that he is part of the HSE apparatus that was not as assertive or vigilant as it might have been in respect of the breaches of public pay policy in the CRC and bringing it into line with public pay. Why is he, as a representative of the funder and the statutory agency that is the guardian of public...

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Yes, but if Mr. Cregan cannot answer it on behalf of the HSE, I will ask Ms McGuinness.

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: I thank Mr. Cregan.

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: The big difficulty with that is that whatever the legal niceties, the vast majority of people who work in the clinic, contract or no contract, had their salaries cut by way of emergency legislation.

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Every other employee has no option, as there is no opt-out in terms of staying within the salary norms. As Mr. Cregan knows, and he has put it very succinctly in his report, under public pay policy a section 38 organisation is not entitled to pay remuneration above a rate as reduced in accordance with that policy or any general agreement on pay. In other words, the organisation does not...

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Is it not really important that we hammer that message home? With a view to rebuilding confidence in the CRC and every other section 38 organisation, there is no option. It is not à la carteand one does not apply public pay policy willy-nilly or in a preferential manner. The policy is the policy, regardless of whether one is the CEO, the nurse or the carer. It does not matter as all...

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: I know Mr Cregan has said that. I wish both Mr. Timmins and Ms Manahan good luck in their respective roles. May I ask them to confirm that they understand that all employees, including Ms Manahan in her role as CEO, are in fact public servants and are bound by public sector pay policy, standards and norms?

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Excellent. I thank the witnesses. I thought Mr. Goulding sounded a bit offended in his opening statement abut the fact that we are here. He went off script and wondered out loud why we are all here. I presume that was just a throwaway comment and I should not read too much of significance into it. I am sure he understands why we are here.

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Excellent. There was a deliberate contrivance to avoid cuts in pay for the chosen few in CRC. That was not very honourable. I am assuming, given Mr. Goulding's background and clear attachment to the CRC, that he operates on the basis of equality for employees of that clinic and he does not work to the notion that some are more equal than others.

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Did Mr. Goulding up the ante and pay more to Mr. Kiely to compensate him for losses on the State end of salary?

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: No?

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: So Mr. Goulding rejects Mr. Cregan's finding?

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Go raibh maith agat, a Cathaorleach, agus fáilte uilig anseo inniú. I shall start with Mr. Cregan and commend him on his expeditious and thorough work. We would share some of his concerns such as the preferability of having an independent entity carry out the work. That point has been made so I will not labour on it. Nonetheless, I acknowledge his report and the timeliness of...

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: That is what I am trying to get from Mr. Cregan. In light of fairness and trying to resolve the issues that we have examined at committee, is it fair to say that at least some responsibility for these matters rests with the HSE?

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Was that a significant flaw in the HSE's procedures?

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Was the HSE assertive enough in its dealings with the clinic? I picked up, from the trail of correspondence, that at times some of Mr. Cregan's colleagues in the HSE, in fact his colleague seated beside him, Ms McGuinness, was essentially being told to get lost by the clinic. Perhaps that is rather crude but that would certainly have been the message I took from some of the letters...

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Was that wise in hindsight?

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: The problem is that they did not.

Public Accounts Committee: 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration (3 Jul 2014)

Mary Lou McDonald: Does Mr. Cregan agree with me that it is not sufficient? Although one would like to make the assumption of goodwill and so on, does he agree that it is not safe to assume, simply on the basis of goodwill, that people, as he put it, live up to these agreements and that there has to be more rigorous enforcement? Is that not a key learning point?