CALLS WERE made yesterday on the Health Service Executive (HSE) to further reduce the amount it is spending each year on renting properties in the midwest.
The call came as new figures emerged from the HSE confirming it will spend €1.7 million in renting properties across Limerick, Clare and north Tipperary this year. This follows a spend of €1.72 million in 2009, which was down from the €1.87 million spent in 2007.
The HSE’s property portfolio in the midwest currently consists of 289 sites, of which 214 are HSE-owned and 75 are rented.
The HSE confirmed that 43 of the rental properties make up the bulk of the €1.7 million rental bill this year.
In a document on the HSE’s property portfolio in the region, it says that it “inherited a large and dispersed portfolio”.
The HSE states that it has “an ongoing cost-containment programme to reduce the rent roll in the midwest”.
It confirms that it vacated eight properties in the midwest in 2009 resulting in annual savings of €105,000 with an additional €150,000 to be saved per annum by the HSE vacating an additional six properties in 2010.
The HSE currently has on the market four properties in Clare, three in north Tipperary and one in Limerick.
Member of HSE West Forum, Cllr Brian Meaney (Green), said yesterday: “The property management of the HSE reveals itself to be without any long-term strategy.
“The HSE must find ways of further reducing the amount it is spending each year on rent for these properties as it is dead money.
“The HSE property portfolio is literally all over the place in Clare and the midwest and more needs to be done to centralise its portfolio, both from a financial point of view and from a customer service point of view for users of the health services.”
Clare Fianna Fáil TD, Timmy Dooley, said that in order to reduce the annual spend on rent “there should be an effort to consolidate as far as possible the dispersed properties being rented by the HSE”.
He said: “It sounds easy, but there are leases in place.”
