HSE can ill afford gross ineptitude

As the financial crisis engulfing the HSE deepens, it is appalling to see the scale of staff overpayments that continue to draw on the near-empty coffers of a dysfunctional organisation whose bureaucratic bungling makes a mockery of the concept of giving taxpayers value for money.

Some stories in today’s revealing report — based on an internal audit of financial, staffing and IT issues in the HSE South area — would be risible if the underlying implications were not so serious. There is every reason to suspect this costly ineptitude is mirrored in other geographic areas of the organisation by half-yearly audits.

We learn, for instance, that salary overpayments in Cork and Kerry in 2010 amounted to €406,000. Now, in the context of a payroll of more than €800m that figure may seem insignificant, but considering the hapless plight of the country every euro must be made to count by those responsible for managing the health budget.