Department of Health Secretary General Ambrose McLoughlin has refused to tell the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) how much he estimated the HSE needed from Government in 2014 to run services.

Questioned today by PAC Chairman John McGuinness, Mr McLougliin said he was not in a position to give that information and the question would have to be addressed to the Minister.

Mr McGuinness said Mr McLoughlin would have prepared some form of request on funding, following consultation with the HSE, which would have been delivered to Government. He claimed Mr McLoughlin was in a position to provide this information to the Committee but was refusing to do so.

HSE Director General Tony O'Brien said he did not have the information requested to hand but agreed to provide the relevant information to the PAC.

He said it should be recognised that the Government overall was working within public expenditure ceilings and did not have the discretion it would like to have on the allocation of budgets for any department or service.

Mr O'Brien told the PAC some senior staff in voluntary health agencies were asserting a contractual entitlement to top-up pay and these cases have to be worked through.

He was commenting on reports today that due to legal difficulties, some senior HSE staff may be allowed keep their top-up payments.

Mr O'Brien said the fact that some senior staff were in receipt of an unauthorised payment was not of their own doing - he said the responsibility lay with the agency making the payment.

Committee member Kieran O'Donnell of Fine Gael was strongly critical of the fact that some executives may be allowed keep their top-ups at a time when elderly people were 'petrified' of medical card reviews.

HSE had surplus of €31 million last year

Some staff may keep top-ups