The Health Service Executive could face a loss of up to €7m due to its dealings with a medical devices company that provided respiratory technology during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told that the HSE bought respiratory products from the company, spending around €15m between 2020 and 2024.
However, the purchases were not compliant with its procurement process.
The company in question later went into liquidation, meaning there was "no hope" of the HSE recovering losses of between €5m and €7m, Chief Executive Bernard Gloster told PAC.
The HSE did not carry out adequate checks on the stock received from the company, while on one occasion it made a double payment of €723,000 on the same invoice, he said.
Mr Gloster said he became aware of the issue last Christmas due to a newspaper report.
He said a number of people would have signed off on the purchase. However, they have since left the HSE and can no longer face investigation.
"This occurred during Covid, in a period of high demand for fast-moving equipment; when most controls were relaxed or set aside to some degree," he added.
Personal Protection Equipment
Earlier, Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) Seamus McCarthy said the HSE incurred charges of €22.7m in relation to stocks of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and €11.1m in relation to vaccines held in storage at the end of 2024 which would reach their expected expiry dates before they could be used.
The HSE also incurred storage costs of €2.1m in respect of stocks of obsolete PPE and hand gel from previous years.
Mr Gloster told the committee that out-of-date stock would be properly destroyed by the end of the year which would lead to no further costs to storage.
He said a separate supply of facemasks were not yet out of date, but were likely to fall out of date in 2026, 2027 and certainly by 2028 due to the volume being carried versus the volume being used.
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National Children's Hospital
In relation to the completion date of the National Children's Hospital, Mr Gloster said he was not sure if it would be further revised.
He told the committee that the latest completion date provided by contractor BAM was 25 November.
"The simple reality is, the shame of it is, that a building with a very small percentage of work to bring it to full completion has dragged on to this extent.
"I don’t know if the date of 25 November will change or not, I very much would regret if it does but I’m very much in the hands of the contractor."
However, Mr Gloster said he was confident that Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) would receive early access to the site in mid-to-late November to begin carrying out commissioning preparation.
He also said he remained hopeful that patients could begin being received by the hospital halfway through next year.
"The commissioning timeframe that the CHI has put on the process was in the order of nine months, I believe it could be done in less than that, possibly less than eight.
"They also believe with a hospital of that size, you commission it, you open it and then incrementally build on the services you add.
"It’s difficult to be exact, I’m still saying that the end of quarter two, which is halfway through 2026, would be the desirable time to see clinical activity in that hospital."
