The board of the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC) may decide to resign after damaging revelations yesterday about substantial unauthorised payments to top staff, with much of these payments coming from the CRC's fundraising arm.

Board members were repeatedly called on to resign as the revelations were made at a lengthy Dail Public Accounts Committee meeting yesterday.

After initially declining to say whether he would consider resigning, CRC Chair Jim Nugent told the PAC he would consider the request for board members to step down with other members and revert back to the Oireachtas Committee.

The revelations about the CRC's finance and governance included:

* Former CRC Chief Executive Paul Kiely received a €200,000 tax-free retirement lump sum from monies raised by the Clinic's fundraising arm, the Friends and Supporters.

* Mr Kiely will have a pension of around €90,000 a year, part-paid for by the fundraising body.

* The Friends and Supporters of the Clinic paid a €3 million loan to the CRC's pension fund covering 70 staff.

* Mr Kiely had a total remuneration of €240,000, which included top-ups from the fundraising body.

* The PAC was told the CRC was paying the Mater Hospital €660,000 per annum for the administration of a pension fund that did not exist. The Mater has denied this, however.

Meanwhile, the HSE will this week begin meeting board members from voluntary health agencies to check they are not paying top-up allowances to staff.

A recent audit revealed that HSE and privately funded top-ups top senior health staff, with many of the payments unauthorised, amount to around €4 million per annum.

CRC grilled at PAC meeting