Enough carrot, more stick - HSE wastes another fortune

IT’S Monday so that must mean another HSE scandal. That assertion may be just a tad too sceptical but — unfortunately — yet another blockbuster of mismanagement and waste of public funds in our health service is reported today.

Anyone who cares for our health service, and that must include most HSE employees; anyone who cares that we spend above the European average on health services but get barely average outcomes; anyone who must in times of great need rely on our public health service and, especially, anyone charged with reforming the seemingly uncontrollable monolith, must despair that the service might ever be associated with optimal performance and held up as a paragon of the management and use of public resources.

The latest symptoms of dreadful mismanagement revealed today come from the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which has uncovered the bizarre, shocking and symbolic fact that the HSE paid out €9m because it had not paid suppliers by legally binding deadlines.