HSE chief says it will 'not let up' in quest to recoup money for unused ventilators

HSE CEO, Paul Reid, said: “I saw my procurement team working 24/7, we took a risk-based approach. This was not a normal environment." Photo: Leah Farrell / Photocall Ireland

The head of the HSE has said the executive will “not be letting up” in its attempts to claim refunds on €81 million worth of Covid ventilators from China which were never used.

Paul Reid told a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee however that the purchase of those devices had to be set in the context of the time, March and April of 2020, when “we were dealing with harrowing images… we were looking at 40,000 deaths potentially”.

Nevertheless, he said that “we’re not letting up on some of this spend”. The committee heard that of 10 suppliers hitherto unknown to the HSE who supplied the machines from China, a “legal process” is in train against four of them to obtain outstanding refunds.

It heard that €23 million remains outstanding in terms of those transactions, and that a further €11.6 million is due to be recouped from a Chinese supplier in the immediate future.

Regarding questions of due diligence in terms of a transaction for 328 ventilators with an Irish intermediary worth €14.1 million, just 65 of which were ever received, the HSE’s chief financial officer Stephen Mulvaney said he could not discuss that as it is “subject to a legal process”.

When it was pointed out to him by Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy that no legal papers have ever been lodged in court regarding that supplier, or indeed any other supplier, Mr Mulvaney said that “legal and commercial processes are often intertwined”. 

“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” he said. “We are keeping all options open.”

The meeting heard that two legal processes are currently in progress relating to the procurement spend - one taken against the HSE by a company which had its contract cancelled, and one which the HSE is planning to take itself.

In terms of the atmosphere at the time, Mr Reid said: “I saw my procurement team working 24/7, we took a risk-based approach. This was not a normal environment. 

In such a situation we will get 70% of decisions right, 30% we would do differently again.

“What I would not stand for at that time was people not taking quick and rapid action,” Mr Reid added.

The HSE’s national director for procurement John Swords, asked how many of the 10 suppliers were Irish, said that in effect they all were “because the IDA was involved”.

Mr Reid denied that no audit trail existed for the transactions, saying that the monies spent and subsequently recouped were clear to see.

A recently released HSE internal audit report on the Chinese transactions concluded that “approval of orders and prepayments was ad-hoc with a formal audit trail unavailable in all instances to show appropriate approvals”.

That report also stated that “no contracts with the 10 suppliers were provided to internal audit” at the time of the review.

Asked whether any further equipment is currently in storage and unused around Ireland, Mr Swords replied: “We’re managing our stocks very closely, and all the products are subject to stock takes.” 

“We don’t have stock that’s not fit for purpose, we have some that has been donated."