James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I accept what the Senator said. We are all trying to rationalise services but that is a slightly separate issue from the amendment. Service providers are agencies that provide services on behalf of the HSE under section 8 of the Health Act 2004. Under the Bill, the HSE must include estimates of employees of service providers in the service plan and this technical amendment is to ensure the inclusion of all relevant employees involved in the provision of services and not just front-line staff. All relevant employees, for example, include payroll, ICT and secretarial support but I take on board what the Senator said. I am particularly concerned that we do not sign service level agreements with organisations that do not provide us the full details of the range of people they pay and their salaries, functions and grades. Failure to co-operate will lead to problems for those organisations and I am, therefore, giving them fair warning.