PPARS over-spend - Wastes of public funds a disgrace

The latest example of the obscene over-spend by the Department of Health could go some way towards explaining why Ireland spends €11 billion on a health service which is exceptionally bad value.

Coming in the wake of the annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which pointed to a huge waste of public money across Government departments and agencies, the €150 million spend on a computer system which cannot perform what is needed, consolidates the public perception that financial incompetence is endemic throughout the Government.

The saga of the €150m system, which in 1998 was supposed to cost only €9m spans three health ministers Brian Cowen, Micheál Martin and Mary Harney. None of them will be resigning, and it would appear that nobody else will.

In an RTÉ radio interview yesterday, the present incumbent, who is also Tánaiste, side-stepped a question as to who was responsible and asserted she was not "acceding to the fact that the money was wasted".

If the Personnel, Payroll and Related Systems (PPARS) cannot do the job it was supposed to do, then it was an unbelievable waste of money.

If, as Ms Harney maintained, there was nothing wrong with the technology, that it is not the problem, then obviously, those who drew up the blueprint of what was wanted of it were grossly incompetent.

Either way, it is set to join that other massive waste of public money, the €50m-plus electronic voting system, in storage.

When it overpaid one employee last July to the extent of €1m, the Health Services Executive (HSE), and the minister, might have had some misgivings about it.

Instead, the HSE unequivocably blamed "human error" and was adamant that PPARS was working properly.

Now, the head of the HSE is to recommend at a board meeting in two days' time that the system be suspended while it reviews this latest debacle.

The opposition parties, which recently have not been quick to grasp opportunities to attack the scale of Government mismanagement of taxpayers' money, must be relentless on this issue.

It demands that somebody be held responsible for this colossal waste of money. The Tánaiste's simplistic attitude that "if we have got it wrong, we must put our hands up" is so preposterously inadequate that it beggars belief she understands the public outrage.

While unfortunate patients lie in trolleys waiting for vital treatment because of a shortage of hospital beds, and badly needed units remained closed because of so-called economic constraints, this unconscionable vandalism of public funds was occurring.