Another fine mess of comic proportions

A FEW days ago, a play opened in Dublin based on hapless Hollywood comedy duo Laurel and Hardy.

Yesterday we were treated to another farce, though with this one there was precious little to laugh about.

The comedy couple were the Government partners and the only prop was a computer payroll system, originally estimated to cost €9 million, but with costs running at €150m and spiralling.

On the face of it, the two dramas have little in common. But they do share a punch line: “That’s another fine mess you have got me into”.

Of all the waste-of-money stories, the ones relating to technology and computers have proven the Achilles heel of the Government partners.

The €44m e-voting fiasco springs to mind.

There was the enforced abandonment of the Media Lab project at a cost of €40m. However, the introduction of the Personnel, Payroll and Related Services (PPARS) system for the health services has been an unmitigated disaster.

Yesterday’s confirmation by Health Services Executive (HSE) chief executive Professor Brendan Drumm that the roll-out of the system is being suspended comes as no surprise.

Fine Gael health spokesperson Liam Twomey estimated earlier this summer the final cost of the system could reach €250m.

Prof Drumm’s decision (following an internal review within the HSE) is precipitative.

The report of the investigation by Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell into the system is due to be completed in December.

It is likely to be very critical of the manner in which the introduction of the system was handled and also of how costs were allowed to spiral.

Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney’s interview yesterday shedlittle light on the matter.

She said she only became aware of problems earlier this summer. Yet the problem seems to have been clearly signposted in her department back to September last year.

In addition, a statement from the Irish Nurses’ Organisation asserted that complaints about PPARS had been ignored, rebuffed or stonewalled by health managers.

Ms Harney did not deal with the net issue, as to why the cost is 20 times higher than the original estimate. Nor did she tackle an extravagant outlay by the State on financial consultancy costs for the system.

She was quick to point out that the computer hardware amounts only to €42m of the total. But what has the other €100m-plus been spent on?

And particularly, how could €70m on consultancy fees be justified?

According to the minutes of a meeting last June between officials from the Departments of Health and Finance, and the HSE, that outlay will be shared by Deloitte and IBM.

In August, the HSE told the Irish Examiner the cost of introducing PPARS would be no more than €127m by the end of 2006.

However, it’s clear from Prof Drumm’s decision to suspend the roll-out that that figure is already dated. Both the Health Department and the HSE have adopted a holding position on the system. When earlier this summer, it was revealed that an employee was paid 1m by mistake, that was portrayed as “human error”.

The system was, on the whole, working well, we were assured.

Even when she spoke in a Dáil committee this summer about the system, Ms Harney’s approach was one of conditionality.

If it turns out to be a dud, she said, we will put our hands up and say we were wrong. But the operative word was ‘if’ and she was still clinging to the ‘if’ yesterday.

Yes, the system is more ambitious than intended. Yes, designing a system for 136,000 employees of 11 former health board areas is complicated and there are anomalies and inconsistencies (between regions).

But to present it as useful in that it has shown up different work practices and rosters is a bit disingenuous.

Surely the HSE did not have to rely on a €150m folly to tell them that.

But the original project, costed at €9m, was hardly a pilot project.

It was to be introduced for five health board areas, as well as St James’s Hospital in Dublin.

But six years after its introduction, it only covers 36,000 employees. A further 70,000 HSE employees, plus 30,000 working in the voluntary sector, still wait to be covered.

In August, Dr Twomey described the system as a “time bomb”.

With the roll-out suspended and the C&AG’s report due for completion in the next two months, it looks like PPARS may eclipse e-voting in the controversy stakes.

There is a political problem for Ms Harney too. If problems were obvious when she took the health portfolio in September 2004, why was it July before she was made aware of them?

Being briefed or not being briefed became a huge issue in the nursing homes debacle, with Micheál Martin bearing the brunt of the criticism.

History seems to be repeating itself.

And it leads to the perception that the great shake-up Ms Harney promised has not yet come to pass.