Fifteen health bodies breaching public service pay rules, says HSE

A total of 15 health service organisations are not in compliance with public service pay rules, the Health Service Executive has said.

HSE national director Rosarii Mannion told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee on Thursday that the issues involved ranged from relatively minor to serious ones. However, she said payments to chief executives were not among the areas of non-compliance.

Questioned by Independent TD Catherine Connolly, Ms Mannion said the HSE had engaged in extensive correspondence with health service organisations in recent years on the requirement to comply with pay policy and that she deemed any unauthorised payment above €5,000 to be "very serious" as it involved public money.

Ms Mannion said there were about 550 business cases involving 15 different organisations and agencies submitted regarding payments that were not in compliance with official pay rules.

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She said 235 of these had been addressed. She added that the remaining 320 included some which were relatively minor, including some staff not being paid on the appropriate scale. She said these needed to be corrected as, under the letter of the rules, the organisations concerned were not in compliance with official pay policy.

Governance matters

The Public Accounts Committee was told that the HSE’s internal audit unit identified issues of concern in 19 health service organisations and agencies, ranging from systems of internal control such as a high number of bank accounts and incomplete accounting records to expenditure on gifts and entertainment, governance matters, remuneration in excess of official rules and contracts being awarded without competitive procurement processes.

HSE director general Tony O'Brien said it funded 2,279 State organisations or voluntary agencies – technically known as section 38 and 39 bodies. He said the reality was that the State depended on the voluntary sector for the delivery of many services and voluntary organisations were often the first to identify gaps in services.

“At this stage, the agencies accept that expenditure of public funds – and, just as importantly for their own reputations, other charitable funds – will attract greater scrutiny by the funder and the public at large.”

He said there had been significant progress in effectively overseeing and monitoring the payment of grants, and compliance levels by agencies have improved. “While agencies should be accountable for the grants made available to them, they should continue to be independent and they should not be so constrained that the innovation and drive they bring to services is lost.”