HSE chief executive Professor Brendan Drumm has told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee that it can not provide details of named consultants who are in breach of their new contracts by performing too much private work.
Professor Drumm said the data can be provided on an anonymous basis but the names of individual consultants cannot be provided as it would breach the Data Protection Act.
The HSE said it had written to 226 consultants asking them to bring their public-private work ratio into line and added that the new contract allows a period for doctors to rectify the issue.
Dáil Public Accounts Committee Chairman Bernard Allen said the committee faced a problem in determining if the taxpayer was getting value for money and was being prevented from securing the detailed data on consultants' private practice.
He said data previously provided by the HSE suggested widespread breaches of the contract and he asked how the HSE had agreed to a new contract but could not supply all the information requested.
Deputy Allen said the Committee had received a letter late last evening from the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association challenging the accuracy of the report submitted by the HSE on the level of private work being performed by consultants.
Newly appointed consultants who signed the new contract are not permitted to have more than 20% of their work as private practice.
Existing consultants who took up the new contract must stay within a 30% private practice limit.
Following questioning by Labour's Tommy Broughan as to the sanctions the HSE can take against a hospital consultant who breaches private practice rules, the Executive told the Committee that the relevant hospital can recoup the money.
