HSE won’t name recipients of non-tendered contracts

THE HSE has refused to name three former senior health board officials who received hundreds of thousands of euro in lucrative non-tendered consultancy work after retiring from their posts.

The Irish Examiner has been told the identities of the officials — who received almost €500,000 in public funding between 2005 and 2009 — will not be provided as no information on “third parties” can be released.

In addition, the dates for when they retired, when the consultancy work began, the exact contract work involved and why it was not subject to tendering have not been made public.

The comment was made after an internal audit obtained by this newspaper found serious concerns over expenditure at the HSE Employers Agency (HSE EA), which was subsumed into the health service’s HR directorate in 2010.

It specifically warned that:

nOne former senior health board official received €145,126 from the group in unspecified consultancy work, in addition to €13,343 in travel and subsistence costs.

nAnother was given €166,607 for “mediation services” between the HSE and medical consultants without any open advertising for the work taking place.

nAnd that a third individual, a former chairman of the HSE EA, received €126,919 for an unadvertised “violence and aggression in the workplace” report for which no funding was initially earmarked.

In addition to this expense, the HSE has also refused to provide any information on the officials behind “team-based performance management” research which cost more than €1 million between 2003 and 2009.

No report was published for this non-tendered project, other than a thesis by an unnamed HSE employee which was submitted as part of a business doctorate.

The HSE has said that “rigorous procedures” have since been implemented to ensure transparency in the system.

The figures emerged a day after the Irish Examiner revealed the HSE has also paid more than €325,000 to a firm run by the chairman of its own board, mainly to answer phone calls.

Rigney Dolphin — whose two main shareholders are HSE board chairman Frank Dolphin and his wife, Adrienne — received €291,927 in 2010 to answer over 191,000 patient phone calls in relation to medical cards.

The company was also given €13,091.48 and €20,555.07 in 2010 and 2011 respectively to provide temporary clerical staff to Waterford Regional Hospital.

The contracts were awarded after an open tendering process.