Emergency talks over health payroll system

The Health Service Executive is to hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the faulty health service payroll system which has already cost the taxpayer more than €100m.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern earlier told the Dáil that €116m had been spent on the controversial Personnel, Payroll and Related Services (PPARS) program up to the end of last year.

He estimated that it would cost another €50m to complete the scheme but he insisted it would not be dumped.

Mr Ahern said the system was designed to pay wages worth €7bn to 100,000 staff but only 40,000 were currently registered on it.

“What was spent up the end of last year was €116m. To finish the system in its entirety would cost another €55m, of which €20m would be staff costs,” he said.

Referring to comments by Opposition leader Enda Kenny, Mr Ahern insisted: “It is not an IT system. It is an entire human resources system for the entire HSE for the future.

“There are difficulties with the system but we should not have presentations that are dishonest.”

PPARS earlier came under fire from opposition politicians with Mr Kenny denouncing the reckless spending by the Government.

“The taps are on in every department with the washing of hands that’s going on,” he said.

But Health Minister Mary Harney denied that responsibility for the failures - which have seen costs spiral to €150m, including €70m on consultancy fees – lay with politicians.

She also said the problems did not stem from the technology used, but a chaotic health service which had existed under a number of different health boards before the Health Service Executive (HSE) was formed in 2003.

“The real problem is the fact that in the Health Service, we have a jumble of incoherence as far as work practices are concerned, we’ve thousands of pay variations, thousands of rosters, many different grade structures and individual working arrangements,” she said.

“We had 11 different health boards: if there was any argument for getting rid of them, and many opposed their abolition, it is that this kind of chaos wouldn’t have happened.

“It wasn’t the IT system that caused the problem, it was the failure to have a coherent and properly managed system as far as pay and conditions, numbers of people who work and all of that.”

The Tánaiste said she had ordered a departmental review of the system which would be reporting to the HSE Board.

The HSE has confirmed that following an examination of the PPARS system, the new head of the executive, Prof Brendan Drumm would be recommending to the board on Thursday that they suspend expansion pending a further review.

“I have every confidence that if it’s appropriate to continue with the system it will continue, but if it’s not appropriate, as I said before in July, we have to admit the error of our ways and make sure we get it right,” Ms Harney said.

“If we got it wrong, let’s put our hands up and stop wasting more money.

“If it is the case this system is the appropriate system and it can be made compatible with the requirements of the Health Service Executive, then obviously after the evaluation that could happen,” she told RTÉ Radio.

Earlier Mr Kenny, who is raising the issue in the Dáil today, described the PPARS system as an example of gross incompetence by the Government, which is contributing to the crisis in Irish healthcare.

“This is the daddy of them all in terms of the list of dishonour of projects that have overrun and where waste of money applies.”

Mr Kenny said there were major questions to be asked about the oversight by the Department of Health and former Health Ministers, as well as the role of consultants.

Labour Health spokeswoman Liz McManus also criticised the system and said it was the latest example of the Government’s cavalier approach to the waste of taxpayer’s money.

“The scale of the waste involved in this case beggars belief; €150m would build a medium-sized hospital or could provide an additional 150,000 full medical cards.

“Instead it appears that this money has been allowed to disappear into a financial black-hole,” she said.

Sinn Féin Dáil leader and health spokesman Caoimhghin O’Caolain said the situation highlighted the lack of accountability for the health service at ministerial level and accused ministers of acting like Pontius Pilate when massive systems failures occurred.