HSE capital spending plan ‘sitting in the Department’

Opposition parties have accused the HSE and Department of Health of deliberately delaying publishing its capital spending plan for this year for seven months because the children’s hospital crisis means that no money is available.

Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, and Labour TDs hit out at senior health officials at two separate events yesterday as it emerged the HSE’s capital plan is still not complete, over half a year into 2019.

Speaking at an Oireachtas budgetary oversight committee, senior officials including HSE chief financial officer Stephen Mulvany and department assistant secretary Colm Desmond admitted the system is facing ongoing financial “challenges”.

The officials claimed that cutback plans, including those relating to home, help reductions were instead “interventions”, “reprofiling”, and “mitigating the deficit”.

However, in separate attacks on the claims, Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath and Sinn Féin health spokeswoman Louise O’Reilly accused officials of deliberately keeping the report hidden as the children’s hospital overrun means no money is available for other projects.

Late last month, new HSE chief Paul Reid committed to publishing the HSE’s 2019 capital plan by the Dáil summer recess, which begins tomorrow afternoon.

However, despite repeated requests for clarity on the deadline, officials failed to confirm that the vital report — which outlines the HSE’s multi-million euro capital spending plans this year — will be made public.

The view was backed by individual members of the Oireachtas public accounts committeePAC, which hit out at the Government over the same issue at the launch of its latest quarterly report launch.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner about the capital plan delay, Labour health spokesman Alan Kelly said: “It is absolutely certain it [the capital plan] is being delayed because of the children’s hospital overrun, it has been passed by the HSE and is sitting in the Department.”

Asked if the report is being delayed for this reason Fianna Fáil TD Marc Mac Sharry said “chalk it down” a view shared by Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy and unaligned Independent TD Catherine Connolly.

The PAC quarterly report also saw demands for a cost-benefit analysis to be completed before the National Broadband Plan contract is signed into law.