Dublin's Beaumont Hospital said it has repaid €25,000 to the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), which was supposed to be used to cut waiting lists.
It follows a self-disclosure by the hospital in March to the NTPF of a possible non-compliance with the NTPF Memorandum of Understanding on the use of these funds.
Anne Coyle, Beaumont CEO, told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today that the issue arose in Rheumatology Outpatient Clinics.
The hospital has emphasised that no consultant received any additional income or reimbursement related to clinics.
It told the Committee that the NTPF was billed in error for rheumatology waiting list services which had already been funded by the HSE.
The PAC has been hearing from the NTPF, which commissions public and private hospitals to cut waiting lists.
It said that concerns had arisen regarding the misuse of funds by three public hospitals in relation to 'insourcing'.
The three hospitals were Nass General, Kerry University Hospital and St Michael's Dún Laoghaire.
Beaumont was dealt with separately, as its specific issues arose earlier before a wider review of hospitals.
Meanwhile, at the PAC, Labour TD Eoghan Kenny raised the issue of a failure by Beaumont to go to tender for a change in payroll systems in 2020.
The Committee heard this resulted in an almost €3m overspend of tax payers money.
Deputy Kenny said it was disgraceful that the hospital had to be asked about this process, rather than providing the information relating to the overspend in their submissions to the PAC.
Initially, the change of payroll was predicted to cost €1.9 million, however the final cost came in at €4.3 million.
Insourcing is where the NTPF directly funds public hospitals for extra inpatient or outpatient treatment, beyond core HSE-funded activity.
This accounts for 30% of the NTPF spend.
Fiona Brady, CEO of the NTPF, said it had conducted a review of 38 public hospitals and found three had breached the Memorandum of Understanding agreement with regard to funding.
The NTPF told the committee today it has no ongoing concerns regarding these cases.
The NTPF said that while insourcing has been temporarily paused with Beaumont, it is engaging with the hospital to provide outsourcing solutions for long-waiting patients.
The NTPF has received reduced funding of €30m in Budget 2026 as part of the Government's health service policy, to reduce reliance on insourcing work, in light of the recent concerns about use of these NTPF funds.
The NTPF funding for next year is €200m.
