The Health Service Executive paid out nearly €2.8 million in interest payments to suppliers in compensation for delays in payments for goods and services in 2021 and 2022, new official figures show.
The HSE said it paid €921,000 in prompt payment interest in 2021.
It also paid out €1.874 million to suppliers in prompt payment interest to compensate for delays in 2022.
The figures were set out by the HSE in an answer provided last week to a written parliamentary question which had been tabled by Kildare TD Catherine Murphy of the Social Democrats.
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The HSE did not provide figures for prompt payment interest made in 2023 in the parliamentary answer. It said its annual financial statement for 2023 would be published in due course.
A table provided by the HSE in the parliamentary answer of the top 20 vendors who received prompt payment interest in recent years shows that the largest amount was paid to the clinical laboratory company Enfer.
Enfer received €72,108 in such payments in 2021 – during the Covid pandemic.
The HSE said that recruitment firm CPL had received prompt payment interest of €61,752 in 2021, €50,467 in 2022, €39,720 in 2023 and €7,938 so far in 2024.
The HSE figures also show that United Drug Distributors received nearly €41,000 in 2021 and more than €20,000 in 2022 and 2023.
Pfizer Healthcare Ireland received more than €33,000 in 2021, the HSE figures show.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment says on its website that it is a requirement that all central Government departments, the Health Service Executive, local authorities and all other public sector bodies (excluding commercial semi-State bodies) pay their suppliers within 15 calendar days of receipt of a valid invoice.
Under legislation suppliers are entitled to receive interest if there are delays to the payment of invoices.
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