The new chief executive of the HSE Cathal Magee told a Dáil committee this morning that a breach of financial regulations in one of the executive's Skill training programme was "unacceptable".
Mr Magee and the secretary general of the Department of Health Michael Scanlan were questioned by TDs today at the beginning of hearings into the Skill programme controversy.
The Public Accounts Committee is examining expenses highlighted by the Comptroller and Auditor General and a HSE internal audit of the training programme.
The audit found a significant number of breaches of public sector requirements and HSE policies and procedures in relation to procurement; utilisation of health service contracts; reimbursement of personal mobile phone costs; hotel expenses, taxi usage; public sector recruitment obligations; maintenance of personnel records; superannuation commitments and data protection obligations.
Among the findings of the report were that no financial records for travel or hotel costs were kept in relation to foreign travel to the US, Australia, Hong Kong and the UK. It says one trade union employee arranged and paid for overseas travel for public officials and others and subsequently either claimed back unvouched and unspecified costs from the Skill programme or funded it through a grant the union received from the Department of Health.
Mr Magee said the executive's internal audit had found expenses had been paid to a bank account called the Siptu National Health and Local Authority Levy Fund on the basis of invoices submitted by the union.
He said the expenses were not properly vouched or supported by sufficient back-up documentation.
Mr McGee said this represented a "serious breach of existing HSE financial regulations and reflected a breakdown in the executive's system of administrative and financial control".
He described this as "unacceptable" and said the HSE had put new measures in place to prevent such breaches occurring again.
Separately, Department of Health secretary general Michael Scanlan today defended the number of foreign trips taken by department officials under the programme.
Mr Scanlan told the Dáil committee he accepted the Comptroller's finding that the terms on which funding was made available by the department were not clear and did not adequately inform the Office for Health management or the HSE about the outputs expected.
Mr Scanlan also said the decision to use some of the Skill funding to meet the cost of the ongoing annual grant to trade union Siptu "has served to confuse matters further."
Mr Scanlan said a review undertaken by his department showed that officials had participated in 10 study visits, two of which were not included in the Comptroller's report. He said the total cost of subsistence claims paid by the department for the visits totalled €6,290. This does not include airline and accommodation costs which were met separately from non-departmental sources.
According to the department's review, all the visits undertaken were considered to be relevant to problems being addressed within the health sector at the time.
Mr Scanlan also said that having management and union figures on these delegations reflected the policy at the time of developing and supporting a partnership approach to organisational change.
Siptu said yesterday it will repay some of the money involved in the programme if any payments are found to have not been properly vouched. The union said it had lodged €348,000 with a commissioner for oaths in good faith.
However, the amount, if any, which will be repaid will not be decided until an internal investigation into the programme is finalised.
Last June, it emerged that €2.3 million in funding from the Skill programme had been paid into a bank account, which was controlled by persons closely associated with Siptu, as part of a grant authorised by the Department of Health.
The union yesterday maintained that it had never sought or known anything about the transfer, and said it had no liability in respect of the money. The annual €250,000 grant was channelled by the Department of Health through Skill.