FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny has criticised Taoiseach Brian Cowen for his failure to take action in response to the disclosure that the HSE is spending €1 million for advice about how its four-year-old structures should be reformed, as well as paying out €1.4 million in bonuses to top managers.
Mr Kenny revealed the existence of the €1 million contract in the Dáil yesterday, and said that, coming on top of the decision to pay massive bonuses, it revealed the colossal mess the Government had made of the health service.
Mr Kenny called on Mr Cowen to ensure that the bonuses were not sanctioned, and that the type of waste epitomised by the HSE contract was eliminated before frontline services were slashed in the budget.
“The HSE are spending €720,000 plus VAT on outside consultants to help deconstruct what the Government set up four years ago,” Mr Kenny said in a statement later.
“A question from Deputy Andrew Doyle to the HSE uncovered these costs of almost €1 million ‘to assist in the design of integrated service management’. The contract, awarded to McKinsey Company, is described in HSE board minutes from April of this year as being about providing ‘key design principles and requirements to maximise organisational effectiveness and deliver greater service integration management’.”
Mr Kenny said the project was an admission that in setting up the HSE the Government created an unaccountable bureaucracy with systemic failings in communication, management and governance.
He noted that €1 million could provide 200 hospital beds or two CT scanners.
Earlier, Mr Cowen responded by saying that the contractual arrangements and conditions of employment in the HSE arose from recommendations of the review body on higher remuneration in the public sector.
