Washing their hands: Will anyone be held accountable for €150m health fiasco?

JUST when the health services thought that it had finally put a lid on the PPARS controversy, a letter appeared yesterday that again put the Department of Health and the Health Services Executive (HSE) on the back foot.

Three letters have now emerged over three days. The Department of Finance letter, which Fine Gael released on Tuesday, and raised serious concerns about the escalating costs and the massive fees paid to Deloitte and Touche (some of it for work that could have been done in-house) on the PPARS project was bad enough.

But then a letter emerged the following day from the then chief executive of St James's Hospital, who contended that PPARS was putting the management and financial integrity of the hospital at risk, as well as its management's relationship with the staff.