HSE wrote off over €50m of bad debt between 2023 and 2024

Sun, 22 Feb, 2026 - 18:00

Louise Burne

The HSE wrote off bad debt worth over €50m between 2023 and 2024, new figures have revealed.

The data was provided to the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) following a meeting with the HSE earlier this year.

Members had sought details of outstanding debts and write-offs recorded by each hospital for 2023, 2024, and 2025.

However, the HSE advised that it was “unable to provide the information request at a hospital level” due to an inability to extract data from an old legacy financial system and the rollout of a new financial system.

The figures provided for 2023 show that outstanding patient debts at the end of that year stood at €102.4m.

Some €24.5m were classified as bad debts and subsequently written off.

There were €85.1m in private charges owed to the HSE, with €13.4m written off.

An additional €5.7m in inpatient charges were written off, in addition to €1.1m related to long-stay charges and €2.5m in emergency charges.

There was €5m in road traffic accident (RTA) charges outstanding at the end of 2023, with €1.7m written off.

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At the end of 2024, some €86m was owed to HSE hospitals, with €27m written off.

Over half of the money lost once again related to private charges, with €16m lost.

Another €2.7m worth of in-patient charges, long stay charges worth €1.5m, emergency charges totalling €4.7m and RTA charges of €2.3m were all written off and considered bad debt.

An HSE spokesperson told the Irish Examiner that “any decision to write off patient debt is taken locally based on informed decision-making considerations, including the type of charge, value of the debt, patient circumstance, length of time the debt is outstanding and cost of recovery".

“The HSE is required, under National Financial Regulation (NFR) B-2, to pursue unpaid debts in a structured and proportionate manner and, after a defined period from the date of billing, to refer outstanding debts to an external collection agency where appropriate,” they said.

“If a patient experiences difficulty in paying a hospital bill, the regulations allow for the hospital and the patient to agree on an instalment arrangement.

“Patients are advised to contact the HSE directly, on a one-to-one basis, to discuss their individual circumstances.

“The HSE is mindful, in implementing these processes, that patients may be experiencing stress and/or financial challenges.”

They also noted that while hospital charges for public inpatient care were abolished in April 2023, “any debt incurred” before this is “subject to the normal financial regulations”.