RTÉ News has learned that a letter from the Department of Finance, written just over three weeks ago, warned that FISP could turn out to be even more costly for the taxpayer than the P-PARS system.
FISP, the central financial management system for the Health Service, has cost €30m so far and was projected to make savings of around €80m a year.
The letter, dated 13 September and sent to the Department of Health, said that over €30 million will have been spent on consultancy assistance for FISP by the end of this year and despite this level of expenditure no element of the system has yet been rolled out.
The Department of Finance said the estimated level of costs for FISP could be even more extreme than P-PARS, despite the fact that the accounting requirements should be more consistent and therefore simpler.
The Health Service Executive has said it is aware of the letter but fundamentally disagrees with its contents.
The consultants to the FISP project are Deloitte & Touche, the same company that has been involved in the controversial P-PARS payroll system.
Yesterday it emerged that the former chief executive of St James's Hospital, John O’Brien, who is now one of HSE chief Professor Brendan Drumm's top advisors, described the system in a letter to the HSE in June as a 'disaster'.
The HSE earlier decided to halt any further expansion of the two computer projects.
The HSE said P-PARS will continue to operate in four health service locations.
An executive group is to be set up to examine the long-term value of P-PARS, which has cost €150m and is thought will cost €166m to roll out fully.
The HSE said the FISP project, which was set up to organise a central financial management and budgeting system for the health service, was at a much earlier stage of development.
However, the HSE said it had to be satisfied that all such systems are adequate to its future needs.
