The HSE said yesterday it was prepared to pay up to €10 million and not a reported €100 million to engage external financial advisers over the next four years.
It had been stated on the Government's e-tendering website that the fee those tendering to provide the service could expect to receive was up to €100 million.
The HSE said "an administrative error" led to the wrong fee being posted on the website, and that the fee it was actually offering was a maximum of €10 million. "The maximum value which appeared on the website should have been €10 million and not €100 million as published. This was due to an administrative error and the tender notice on the e-tenders website has been amended accordingly," it said.
Fine Gael's health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey said the HSE gave the impression it appointed all the financial experts it required when it was established two years ago and it therefore should explain why it needed more now, at considerable cost.
He said the mistake in relation to how much it was prepared to pay outside consultants showed how "cavalier" it was: "They are sending out tendering documents . . . and they couldn't even get the amount of money they were going to spend on it right."