HSE staff spent thousands on tips, trips and calls

BACKROOM HSE staff spent thousands of euro in taxpayers’ money on flowers, candlesticks, hotels, foreign trips, restaurant tips and phone calls — including some from abroad by people allegedly on sick leave.

The financial waste was uncovered as part of a health service internal probe into the HSE Employers Agency. Documents seen by the Irish Examiner confirm the group — which implemented health service HR improvements until it was subsumed into the HR directorate last year — failed to address a series of financial issues between 2006 and 2009.

Among the main findings of the investigation, based on sample records, are:

* A bill totalling almost €2,000 for one employee who travelled to Brussels for a short conference on March 10, 2008.

Prior to the trip the HSE Employers Agency agreed to pay for a €491.31 plane ticket before it was told to pay for a further €1,366.26 in expenses.

The audit team “could not satisfy” itself that the plane ticket cost was part of the €1,366.26 figure.

* Almost €6,000 in tips/ gifts between 2006 and 2009 including a €200 gratuity left at a restaurant.

* “Excessive” calls on work mobiles to countries including Bulgaria, Benin, Christmas Island, Nigeria, New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand allegedly for work purposes when no work appeared to have taken place.

An itemised bill ceased to be provided in 2009. Work mobile bills for 23 staff, many of whom were not entitled to work mobiles, totalled almost €40,000 over four years.

* Flowers put on the office’s credit card on four occasions totalling €273.50, for unknown reasons. The card was cancelled when its only holder retired.

* Candlesticks and a lamp worth €705 “as a gift for a consultant”.

* Workers who did not repay total costs accrued from calls from the US and Spain while allegedly on sick leave or on holiday.

The HSE’s business travel unit states that credit card expenses must be routed through its own bank accounts to ensure costs are legitimate work expenses.

However, in the case of the HSE Employers Agency, the credit card was linked to one staff member’s private bank details, with this individual then claiming the total figure from the service.

The internal audit report concluded that the costs breached a series of HSE travel and expenditure regulations and exposed the taxpayer to potential “fraud or litigation”.

The probe — which has ordered HSE management to address “inadequate” financial controls at the centre of the concerns — also noted 184 calls or texts were made to one of the listed countries in a single three- month period in 2006 from just one mobile.