No political involvement in procuring unusable ventilators – Tánaiste 

Robert Quirke, president and CEO of Roqu Group, which procured ventilators on behalf of the HSE at the beginning of the pandemic. Picture: Julien Behal

There was no political involvement in the financial side of procurement for the Covid-19 pandemic, at least to his knowledge,
the Tánaiste has told the Dáil.

Leo Varadkar, taking leaders questions in Leinster House yesterday, was asked about the circumstances which led to festival management company Roqu Media International being given a €14.1m contract for the importation of ventilators which turned out to be unusable.

During Leaders' Questions, @RoisinShortall raises purchase of €14m worth of ventilators from China which were never used. Explanation needed as to why HSE entered into procurement agreement with an Irish company that did not seem to have any experience in this area. pic.twitter.com/v5rfHAFr0l

— Social Democrats (@SocDems) December 17, 2020

Under questioning from Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall regarding the Roqu transaction, Mr Varadkar stressed that the situation in February and March was “very pressurised” due to a lack of effective PPE and relevant equipment in Irish healthcare settings.

He said that “when it comes to contracts that’s done at an agency level, not political”. “I don’t have any particular recollection of any contracts to do with ventilators,” he said, adding he would have to “check my records”.

“We received a lot of legitimate offers, some quite suspect offers frankly. I’d imagine that anything provided to anybody in a political role would have been passed on to the HSE as the relevant authority for procurement.” 

“I don’t personally recall any contact with that company.”

Mr Varadkar said that at the time the HSE and politicians were inundated with offers from people seeking to help out, and said that any such offers he would “pass onto the agencies”.

“I certainly wouldn’t have gotten involved in discussions around money. Perhaps others did, but nothing in my recollection,” he said.

Separately, the head of the HSE asked that people try to remember the strain the health service was under in terms of procuring PPE and medical equipment in February and March in the face of the controversy over unusable ventilators.

Responding to questioning on the subject at the HSE’s weekly media briefing in Dublin,  HSE chief executive Paul Reid said “cast your mind back” regarding “what was happening in the world, which was a worldwide chase for ventilators”.

“We were doubling our capacity to 1,000 ventilators. One single supplier wasn’t an option,” Mr Reid said.

He said the €14.1 million contract given to Roqu for the supply of Chinese ventilators was being “followed back” on as the ventilators had failed quality testing.

”We are in detailed discussions with Roqu regarding contractual obligations,” he said.