Cianan Brennan: Covid inquiry should include probe into procurement of ventilators
The terms of reference for the covid inquiry have left many deeply underwhelmed. File photo: Denis Minihane
On May 22 of this year, Ireland was given its first briefing as to how its covid inquiry is going to go.
Over the next 18 months an independent panel of experts will sift through swathes of documents and testimony in an effort to arrive at lessons as to how the country handled the devastating pandemic from March 2020 when it first struck.
The terms of reference for the inquiry have left many deeply underwhelmed.
There will be no public inquiry. No blame will be apportioned, no fingers pointed. The inquiry will not have the power to compel witnesses to appear. No transcripts will be made available. For the most part, the inquiry will take place behind closed doors.
There may be some logic to this – if witnesses believe they are entering the lion’s den, how can they be expected to speak truthfully of what happened during that fateful 24 months when society was turned on its head by a virus?
But the overwhelming feeling when one considers the approach the inquiry will take is that it is a naive one. Or worse, a deeply cynical one aimed at achieving as little accountability as possible.
By way of illustration, consider the example of Narooma, the medical devices firm which was recently the beneficiary of an order from an arbitrator stating that the HSE must pay it €2.9m, along with the attendant massive legal costs, for its breach of a covid-era contract to purchase medical ventilators from the Far East.
That firm should have been a godsend for the HSE. At that point, the health service was feverishly seeking suitors to provide ventilators at a time when demand for the devices was sending Governments worldwide into a frenzy – no one wishing to be the country which was unable to prevent deaths due to a lack of equipment.
The fact that that demand eventually dissipated when it became clear the expected glut of medical emergencies was not going to transpire is irrelevant – for six weeks from mid-March 2020 the urgency of the demand for the devices was very real.
On March 25, Narooma – a specialist provider with a proven track record of supplying services to the pharma and life sciences industries – made contact with the HSE offering its services to procure ventilators from its own supply chain.
The company made clear that those devices had already been promised elsewhere on the international market, but that its preference would be to keep them in Ireland given the company’s own provenance.
Two days later a contract was signed by both sides to the value of €7.5m for 350 ventilators, with that money to be paid on March 30 ahead of delivery.
The money was never paid, the HSE saying that it belatedly wished to perform due diligence on the company, who not unreasonably retorted that said diligence should have been done before the contract was signed.
From there, things got messy.
When it became clear that the money was not going to be paid – for reasons unknown - Narooma sued in the High Court for breach of contract, citing loss of earnings as other orders had been cancelled in order to facilitate the HSE.
The HSE argued the case should be sent for arbitration as per the contract, which it duly was.
Meanwhile, rather strangely, An Garda Síochána reported to the Policing Authority that Narooma was subject to an international criminal fraud investigation, and that the force’s economic crime bureau was aiding the HSE in efforts to return the €7.5m it had apparently paid to Narooma.
Stories were subsequently carried in the media to that effect. In the aftermath, the gardaí confirmed that the information sent to the Authority was “incorrect”, and that no money had ever been sent to Narooma.
Fast forward five years and Narooma has been completely and utterly vindicated in the courts, and the HSE, and therefore the taxpayer, is on the hook to the tune of in the region of €6m.
Except this is the same HSE that, at the same time it was speed-negotiating with Narooma was also agreeing to pay Roqu Media International – a company best known for organising music festivals in eastern Europe and the Middle East – more than €14m for 328 ventilators.
This was a company with no medical expertise or history whatsoever. The HSE’s own confidential due diligence posted multiple red flags regarding the deal, yet still it proceeded.
Predictably, it was a disaster. Only 72 ventilators ever made it to Ireland. None of them were ever used after failing to pass quality control.
Five years later the HSE is still in dispute with Roqu’s principal Robert Quirke over €10.3m it feels he owes them regarding those faulty machines.
Mr Quirke meanwhile has since re-invented himself on a number of occasions, as the purveyor of health passports, then as a promoter of a celebrity boxing match atop the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and most recently as an installer of hydroelectric generators – one of which was recently shut down at the K Club resort in Kildare after it emerged it had been installed without planning permission.
So the question is – how was Roqu given full access to the funds of the State while a company with genuine expertise in the field was sold down the river, and made to battle for five years to recoup what it was owed?
That five years, while nothing to the machinery of the State, must have been a long time indeed to a company which had done nothing wrong, and found itself screwed over utterly.
That is the sort of question the covid inquiry should be answering.
But you probably shouldn’t hold your breath. If the Narooma case has shown anything it is that in Ireland if you want justice, you’ll have to get it for yourself, and be prepared to wait a long, long time for it.
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