Irish Examiner view: This tangled tale of HSE procurement at the start of the pandemic is no joke 

It may sound like a satirical comedy but, after Cianan Brennan's revelations, it's time for a proper enquiry into the episode

It took a 20-month Freedom of Information process for 'Irish Examiner' journalist Cianan Brennan to get some key information out of the HSE regarding its procurement of Covid-19 equipment including Tony Holohan's engagement with Roqu Media International. File picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews 

Cianan Brennan’s latest report in his two-year Irish Examiner investigation into the long, tangled tale of Chinese ventilators, a festival management company, and the HSE has all the makings of sharp satire along the lines of The Thick Of It — until a reader realises that it wasn’t a scriptwriter’s dream but a sober account of chaos in the shadow of the pandemic.

Roqu Media International first approached then chief medical officer Tony Holohan about securing Covid-19 ventilators back in March 2020, but only now, following a 20-month Freedom of Information fight for HSE records which was eventually approved by the Information Commissioner, are we privy to the decision-making process at the time. 

The HSE paid over €14m for an initial 300 ventilators but only 72 were delivered. 

Some machines were non-compliant, and some had certification which was five years out of date.

However, any sense of comedy doesn’t survive refreshing one’s memories of March 2020, a time of genuine fear and apprehension across the country. For hundreds of families, those fears were well founded as they lost loved ones to the virus over the coming months.

Consequently, this episode needs to be teased out fully and responsibility must be accepted by those who felt it appropriate to fork out huge sums of taxpayers’ money for medical equipment.

Across the water, investigations into procurement and contracts have recently been in the headlines, such as the case where officers from the British National Crime Agency are investigating PPE Medpro, a company that received more than £200m of British government Covid contracts weeks after Conservative peer Michelle Mone referred it to ministers.

This story illustrates the glaring need for a full public inquiry into all aspects of the pandemic response, as called for on these pages for two years now. 

Don’t be distracted by politicians arguing there shouldn’t be “a witchhunt”, no-one wants one.

At the height of the pandemic we were warned that future viruses could spark similar lockdowns; we must ensure that mistakes made dealing with Covid-19 are not repeated, if and when those future viruses strike.