PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE:THREE HOUSES bought by the health service in the midlands seven years ago to accommodate a number of people with intellectual disabilities who were living in an institutional setting are still lying idle, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee was told yesterday.
The committee was informed by Labour TD Róisín Shortall that the people the houses were meant to accommodate are still living in the institutional setting of St Peter's Centre in Castlepollard, Co Westmeath. She said the houses were bought by the health service in 2001 for €640,000 but were vacant and deteriorating. She asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to explain how this could happen.
Laverne McGuinness, director of primary, community and continuing care with the HSE, said one could question whether they should have been purchased without "a business plan" detailing the costs of staffing them. She said the HSE was now looking at reassigning staff to them.
HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm admitted money earmarked for palliative care services had been spent elsewhere. He said a judgment call had to be made when money was required to cover the cost of increased attendances at hospitals for example.
Asked about bonuses paid to HSE staff in 2007, Prof Drumm said the figures were not available yet. Asked if any employees paid a total of €1.24 million in bonuses in 2006 had declined their bonus, Prof Drumm said he wasn't sure people in the health service who work extraordinarily hard should be asked "to subsidise" the service they were working in by refusing to take their bonus.
Prof Drumm said if most existing consultants signed up for the new contracts, it would cost an extra €150 million a year.