Reilly in hot water over hospital upgrade order

Health Minister James Reilly was embroiled in fresh controversy after it emerged that a hospital modernisation he ordered to be “accelerated” in a senior Cabinet colleague’s constituency was not an HSE priority.

The upgrading of the medical facility in Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin’s Wexford base was not a key development in the HSE Capital Plan, freedom of information documents show.

Internal health department letters show that upgrades to Wexford General Hospital’s emergency department was branded “not a priority” after receiving limited design funding up to April 2011.

In June that year, Dr Reilly said he wanted the project “accelerated”, along with a hospital upgrade in the Kilkenny constituency of Environment Minister Phil Hogan, documents released to RTÉ have shown.

Mr Howlin increased the HSE capital budget, allowing for the upgrade in his constituency.

His department answered questions about why extra capital funding had been approved in a letter: “The proposed extension to Wexford General Hospital features in the HSE Regional Service Plan for 2011 and preceding years,” the letter read. “Planning permission for the project was lodged by the HSE in 2010 and granted by Wexford Borough Council in 2011. Design and planning work commenced as far back as 2009.”

In late June 2011, a senior official in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform wrote to an assistant secretary in the Department of Health to say: “In order to avoid any delays in respect of making commitments for new projects in the plan in respect of which funding is in place and which are not effected by the outstanding issues, [including Wexford Emergency Department and Maternity Projects at a total cost of €20m], I am to convey sanction to non-ICT capital expenditure.”

Roisín Shortall, who quit as a junior health minister last autumn after public clashes with Dr Reilly, said: “It is important that there are proper procedures in place. We can’t have a situation in health where decisions are taken for political reasons, either to assist the minister, either him, or herself, or to bolster a Cabinet colleague.”