Urgent update needed from HSE on Section 38 compliance – Harris

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has today (Thursday) agreed to a request from PAC member and Fine Gael Wicklow TD, Simon Harris, to seek an urgent update from the Health Service Executive (HSE) regarding the compliance status of Section 38 organisations.

“The deadline has now passed for Section 38 organisations to sign compliance statements with the HSE. I raised the issue at this morning’s meeting of the PAC, and I am pleased that the Committee has agreed to seek an urgent update on the matter from the HSE.

“PAC’s work on the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC) in the run up to Christmas uncovered extremely worrying practices and systematic problems with corporate governance within the organisation. These revelations took up a major amount of time and rightly so. However, there are 44 Section 38 organisations and it is essential that we ensure that all are complaint with public pay policy and that good corporate governance structures are in place. We know clearly from the HSE audit and from other sources that many of these organisations were not in compliance.

“I am very keen for PAC to finish its work on this area. It is essential for the sector, for service users and for taxpayers. Until we receive an update from the HSE regarding how many organisations are now compliant, we are in an information vacuum. It is important that we receive an update from the HSE without delay, so that scrutiny can be applied to any organisations which remain non-compliant.

“We’re spending more than €2.6 billion on Section 38 organisations every year. The scale of this funding makes it absolutely imperative that we have a clear picture of how this money is being spent and how these organisations are being run.

“I look forward to receiving a full update from the HSE regarding the compliance of Section 38 organisations. I also look forward to asking questions of and receiving answers from those who continue to be non-compliant and in breach of public pay policy.”

ENDS