Waste and incompetence in connection with this Government's spending programmes are nothing new. But the magnitude of the planning and administrative failures in the development of a computerised payment system for the health services is breathtaking.
Money desperately needed to improve patient care during the past six years has been wasted on consultancy services and on a computer system that doesn't work properly. There must be some accountability this time.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny spoke about "gross incompetence" and "reckless spending" when he raised the matter in the Dáil yesterday. And who could gainsay his criticisms and those from the other opposition parties? Certainly not members of a Cabinet who spent €50 million on a computerised voting system that may never be used.
This new episode of Government profligacy was publicly identified last year by the Comptroller and Auditor General. It represents an administrative and financial shambles. It directly involves three Ministers who served at the Department of Health.
In spite of that, the current Minister, Mary Harney, had the gall to insist that responsibility does not lie with politicians, but with the now-disbanded health boards. This is self-serving, on a par with the response by Micheál Martin to the scandal of illegal State deductions from nursing home patients.
Ministers are ultimately responsible for the actions of their departments under the Constitution. And there is also the question of collective Cabinet responsibility.
A lack of proper planning appears to have been at the heart of the difficulties experienced by the Personnel, Payroll and Related systems (PPARs) computer system that was sanctioned by the Department of Health in 1998. It was originally costed at less than €9 million. By 2002, that had grown to €90 million. Last year, it had ballooned to €150 million. The Comptroller and Auditor General has estimated the final cost to be about €230 million.
The Tánaiste explained there was such a plethora of work practices, pay variations and grade structures within the various health boards that the computer system had been unable to cope with them. She suggested its introduction would eventually lead to properly managed work practices.
That may be so, but surely there are cheaper ways of addressing such problems? As things stand, many of the anomalies identified still exist. Some €150m of taxpayers' money has been spent. And we have an ineffective computer payment system that applies to only one-third of health service workers.
There are compelling reasons to suspend the development of this financially voracious and ineffective computer payments system. But those aspects of the programme that function - and have cost so much - should be retained. More than anything else, the Government should be made accountable.
And the experience should force reassessment of a project where consulting companies walked away with €70 million while the taxpayer was left with a system that still does not work.