'Extreme urgency' saw HSE rush to buy sanitiser without tender process

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The HSE has said the “extreme urgency arising from the pandemic" led to it paying more than €9.1m to the company that supplied it with millions of bottles of potentially dangerous hand sanitiser without a formal tender process.

It purchased more than 3m units of Virapro, the hand sanitiser now at the centre of a major recall after it was found to contain methanol — an ingredient believed to be toxic in such products.

In a statement, the HSE confirmed it did not go through a formal tender process with Virapro. Instead, it was awarded by negotiated procedure.

This was based on the European Commission’s guidance on public procurement during the Covid-19 crisis.

"In order to act with the pace necessary to meet these challenges [in sourcing PPE], due to the extreme urgency arising from the pandemic, it was necessary for the HSE to enter into agreements with a wide variety of suppliers for the purposes of placing urgent purchase orders for PPE without a formal tender process, employing the exemptions available under Article 32 (2) (c) of Regulation 2014/24/EU," the HSE said in a statement.

It said purchases were placed with multiple suppliers of PPE at “an unprecedented pace” in order to secure the required stocks.

One million units of the HSE’s supply of Virapro are “likely” to have been distributed to all healthcare facilities. An urgent product recall was initiated last Thursday.

This includes hospitals, GP offices, dentists, community healthcare facilities, nursing homes, testing centres, and the National Ambulance Service.

The remaining HSE stock has been placed in quarantine and a product recall team has been put in place to oversee the collection of defective products.