HSE paid retired officials for untendered work

TWO retired health board officials and a former senior trade unionist received hundreds of thousands of euro in HSE consultancy fees for projects that were never put out to tender.

An internal investigation seen by the Irish Examiner has found the individuals’ companies received over €400,000 for the unadvertised work over a four-year period.

The money was paid out by the now-defunct HSE Employers Agency (HSE EA) which was tasked with implementing health service HR improvements.

The details are listed in an internal HSE probe which took place between January 2006 and December 2009 and is made public today.

Among the key findings of the investigation, organised by former HSE chief executive Professor Brendan Drumm, are:

- €145,126 provided to a former senior health board official for work which was not tendered for, in addition to €13,343 on travel and subsistence fees (January 2005-April 2007).

- €166,607 paid to a second retired health board official for mediation services between the HSE and medical consultants without any tender taking place (January 2005-December 2009).

- €164,750 paid to an IT firm instead of using internal HSE ICT services. n€88,775 to a catering firm for the HSE EA’s Dublin-Mid Leinster office.

- €158,813 for a “people management communications” plan during this period, among other costs.

The HSE declined to confirm the names of the retired health board officials or say which project related to the trade unionist.

None of these projects were the subject of tenders, which is a breach of HSE financial and procurement legislation. This risks claims being made by firms which could otherwise have been awarded the contracts.

As a result of the findings, HSE auditors warned officials to keep former health service workers “at arm’s length” in future projects due to potential legal issues.

Among a series of other concerns raised in the 46-page investigation were the ‘excessive’ misuse of work mobile phones for hundreds of international calls and issues surrounding the HSE EA credit card.

Health service management has agreed to address the concerns but said many of the problems are already resolved as the HSE EA was subsumed into the HSE HR directorate in 2010.