Consultants criticise HSE over €56m

The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association has criticised the board of the Health Service Executive (HSE) over the controversy in which up to €56 million in funds set aside for capital investment this year could have been used to meet current expenditure last year.

In a statement yesterday, the consultants' organisation said that three members of the HSE board had been members of the Commission on Financial Management and Control Systems in the health sector which had produced recommendations on corporate governance and for oversight of the expenditure of State funding.

The IHCA referred to proposals in the commission's report, which included that accountability for managing resources and for financial control be devolved to those with the authority to commit or expend resources and that there should be strong audit committees and appropriate external and internal audit arrangements.

"Dáil Éireann voted €56 million to be used for minor capital purposes by the HSE. According to Irish Times reports, we now know that the board was advised [that] that money would be used for day-to-day spending," the IHCA statement said. "Apparently nobody on the board or the HSE audit committee saw anything wrong with overturning a specific decision of the legislature."

The IHCA said that the members of the board who had served on the commission, by the standards they had set themselves in their report, had questions to answer.

The HSE said last night that the IHCA statement was offensive and seriously undermined the organisation's credibility as a representative body for hospital consultants.

"The HSE's board members are extremely committed individuals who take their role seriously and devote their expertise and their own free time to ensuring that the HSE conforms to the highest standards of governance. Any suggestions to the contrary are nonsense and ill-informed," it stated.

The HSE said that when its full accounts for last year were completed by the end of this month it was likely that they would show a modest overall surplus.

It said that this was an impressive achievement given the €12 billion in funds involved and the complexities of the health services.

"Such an achievement in the HSE's first full year of operation reflects a prudent management of its vote," it stated.

On Saturday, The Irish Times revealed that the Department of Finance wanted a team of outside accountants brought into the HSE last January to assess how €56 million in capital funding, which Minister for Finance Brian Cowen stated in the Appropriation Act had been set aside to be carried forward for use this year, could actually have been used to meet current expenditure last year.

The Department of Finance argued that it was unsatisfactory to have to wait several weeks until the HSE accounts were completed.