400 HSE buildings lying unused across the country 

HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster said 'if the Department of Children wishes to avail of any properties' he would be happy to listen. Picture: Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland

Some 20% of the HSE’s property portfolio is currently vacant, with as many as 400 buildings lying unused across the country, a Dáil committee has heard.

HSE chief financial officer Stephen Mulvany told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee on Thursday that of the more than 2,000 properties on the HSE’s portfolio, roughly 400 “of all different shapes and sizes” are vacant.

He said while the information regarding those properties was not publicly available, the HSE was willing to provide details in response to queries from elected representatives.

Mr Mulvany said he was not in a position to put an estimate on the value of the health service’s vacant property portfolio.

He said the HSE was part of the statutory taskforce looking at the use of public properties, and that it routinely sought to move unused properties into the use of other State agencies.

Much of the properties on the vacant list are lying derelict, Mr Mulvany said, adding that in other cases the buildings will be heated by the HSE in order to preserve the structure. 

Security is also employed to discourage anti-social behaviour on such properties.

In response to the observation of Sinn Féin’s John Brady that “people are coming to this country and living in tents”, HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster said “if the Department of Children wishes to avail of any properties” he would be happy to listen.

Mr Mulvany said if the portfolio were deemed “usable for accommodation” then that would be a matter for the various housing bodies to decide upon.

High earners

Mr Gloster said, with regard to the payment of high earners which saw eight separate consultants paid in excess of €500,000 in 2022, he did not “accept that €900,000 is a fully essential payment”.

Mr Gloster, who has this week put a stay on all management-grade recruitment within the HSE in a bid to control such expenditure, said the HSE "can do better” on consultant pay.

“The largest growth has been the management grade, I don’t want to disparage that, I come from that grade myself, but I put a final control on that for the balance of the year,” Mr Gloster said, adding as a result of that decision, he faces industrial action.

Trade union Fórsa said it had no choice but to lift its suspension of industrial action in response to the pause on applications for all management and administrative roles.

Section 39 

In terms of State-funded section 39 healthcare agencies, which are due to go on strike themselves on October 17 as a result of their pay not having been restored in tandem with the public service, Mr Gloster said he is “on record as saying that section 39s are critical”.

Those agencies are seeking a 10% pay hike, however, Mr Gloster noted “there is 5% on the table with 3% payable retrospectively back to last April”.

“That was rejected,” he said.

“My preference would be that section 39s that are service providers would arrive at a space that would be sustainable,” he said.

The committee heard from comptroller and auditor general Seamus McCarthy that there is “inadequate monitoring and oversight” of grants given to section 38 and 39 agencies, saying only 83% of the €6.3bn granted to those agencies by the HSE in 2022 was covered by a formal contract, down from 96% in 2017.

Mr McCarthy added procurement processed outside public spending rules “remains a significant issue” for the HSE, with €128m of such expenditure, for expenses larger than €25,000, was incurred in 2022 alone.