If the Department of Health begins an investigation into why a number of health boards underspent millions given them in their budgets last year it will not find out anything it doesn't know already, the chief executive of the Mid-Western Health Board predicted yesterday.
Mr Stíofán de Búrca reacted angrily to reports that the Department is to investigate why so much was underspent when services in some areas had to be cut.
He said his health board, which ended 2003 with a €13.5 million surplus, briefed the Department monthly on its financial affairs and therefore an investigation would throw up nothing not already known to it.
Mr de Búrca said the board was warned when given its 2003 allocation that there would be no supplementary funding for the year. However, it got €41 million in additional revenue during 2003, €6 million of which only arrived in December.
Furthermore, he said that last October the Department advised the board to carry forward as much revenue as it could into 2004 as it expected finances to be tighter.
"It is galling that we should now be subjected to such unfair criticism," he said.
"If an inquiry is to be held I hope it will, in fairness to our staff, address these issues and look at how well they are coping with problems created by historic underfunding of the health service in the Mid-West and an acute lack of capacity in the system," he said.
The South Eastern Health Board said it was advised as it went into 2003 that it should set aside money in a contingency fund "to cover unexpected issues or pressures which might arise during the year". It put €6 million into the fund.
By the end of the year its financial position ended up being reasonably favourable, despite having exceeded its planned activity levels, because of "once-off additional income" from the Department.
"Details of the board's contingency sum have been published each month in the board's financial documentation which is debated in public and which is forwarded to the Department of Health," it said.
Meanwhile, the Western Health Board, which carried €15 million forward into this year, said €9 million had been carried over from 2002. "We had planned to spend this once-off money (the €9 million from 2002) in 2003 on urgent health and safety priorities but we received a minor capital grant from the Department for that plan. In the interest of prudence we decided to hold the 2002 balance as contingency for 2004 and not top slice this year's budget in a very tight year," it said in a statement.
A Department of Health spokesman said last evening the money carried over would not be taken from the boards.
He added that there would be "no big inquiry" but the fact that the boards ended the year with surpluses would be discussed at their next service plan meetings in the Department.