Health warned over €56m fund move in June

THE Department of Health was rebuked for switching current day-to-day funds with capital budgets more than six months ago by the Department of Finance, it emerged yesterday.

Details of the June 2005 warning came as Tánaiste Mary Harney and the Health Service Executive (HSE) defended the unauthorised transfer of €56 million from the HSE’s capital budget to its day-to-day expenditure.

The Department of Finance’s concern about such switches is detailed in a memo about overspending on the PPARS IT system which was sent to senior health department officials last June. “It is unclear how the costs were, and continue to be, apportioned between current and capital spending and that current items were being treated as capital. This must stop,” the memo reads.