Health pay system costs hit E231m — 26 times the estimate

Mary Dundon, Political Reporter

The Personnel, Payroll and Related Systems (PPARS) system hit the headlines earlier this year when it paid out E1 million in error to one Health Service Executive employee without even knowing it.

When the project started in 1998, it was estimated that it would cost E8.8 million.

However, in a review ordered by the Department of Health in 2002, a copy of which was seen by the Irish Medical Times, PPARS national projects director Tony Reilly revealed E17 million was spent on the project in 2001.

Mr Reilly added that the national roll-out of the under-fire system would cost an extra E90 million through 2005.

But to date E131 million has been spent on the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) computerised payroll system and another E100 million is needed to complete it, according to Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell.

Mr Purcell revealed the figure to the All-Party Oireachtas Health Committee and he is conducting a value-for-money audit on the controversial health payroll system.

While the Comptroller and Auditor General has put a final cost of E231 million on the project, IT sources said yesterday that E500 million is a more accurate figure because the C&AG’s figure does not represent the whole cost of software implementation.

Fine Gael criticised the spiralling costs of the system yesterday, describing it as a “taxpayer’s nightmare”.

“This prospect of E231m being squandered is a nightmare scenario which underlines the incompetence of this chronically wasteful Government,” Fine Gael’s Health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey said.