John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As this is the first appearance of Dr. Ambrose McLoughlin and Mr. Tony O'Brien before the committee, I welcome them and look forward to working with them in the context of our work. As this is a resumed session, the Comptroller and Auditor General will not make an opening statement. However, I wish to put today's meeting in context. In that regard, I shall read the following statement.

We are resuming our examination today of the management of the HSE Vote which was a subject matter of our meeting on 28 June 2012. The issue of Vote management and cost containment was dealt with by the Comptroller and Auditor General in chapter 47 of his 2010 report. In examining this, the committee sought details of how the cost containment and Vote management issues were working in the current year, given that the information coming into the public domain in respect of the HSE budget was that it faced a significant over-run and corrective measures were needed. The evidence given to the committee in June by the former Accounting Officer showed that, if unchecked, the over-run was likely to reach €500 million.

Arising from that meeting in June, the committee received further information in July from the HSE, by way of follow up letters, and this evidence formed the basis of a draft report which was first considered by the committee at our meeting on Thursday, 20 September 2012. In reviewing that report, it was clear to the committee that information published by the HSE in September needed to be incorporated in that committee report as the figures would be out of date and, as the key issue is budget management, the committee agreed to call the HSE and the Department of Health to bring our deliberations on this issue up to date. It is in this context that the meeting is being held today.

I wish to deal with an issue raised yesterday with the clerk to the committee. It relates to a concern that the committee, by reviewing the Vote management in the HSE in the current year, is somehow straying beyond its remit. I said on my appointment that I would not confine our activities to accounts and events, some of which are two years old, when they are discussed here and that I would bring current issues to the table in order that members of the Committee of Public Accounts can be more effective and can play a meaningful role in the way public expenditure is managed. One has only to look at the latest Comptroller and Auditor General report to see the waste that is endemic in our system of public administration. It would be very easy for the committee to stay within a narrower remit and deal solely with budget overruns in, for example, 2010, but that defeats the purpose when what the taxpayer wants is an explanation of how the current budget is being managed. The Committee of Public Accounts has to play a meaningful role in the control of public expenditure. It cannot wait until 2014 to review what has happened in 2012.

In the case of Vote management of the HSE, the Comptroller and Auditor General has raised concerns in the past, and devoted an entire chapter to it in his 2007 annual report when he voiced concern at allowing over-runs to develop in the expectation that budget holders would be bailed out in some way. At the same time, he questioned what he saw was the wait-and-see culture that had developed among budget holders. We are now in a situation where there is no surplus cash elsewhere in the system to bail out the HSE and, therefore, the meeting today provides an opportunity to the HSE and the Department to highlight how costs are being contained.

I am aware that serious efforts are being made by the HSE and the Department since it became evident earlier this year that an overrun on the budget was emerging from the trends. At today's meeting we want to test how effective those corrective measures have been. In the Comptroller and Auditor General's 2010 report, issues such as staff reduction measures, reorganisation and cost containment were raised. These are the issues we are going to follow up at today's session. What is not in our remit is to question policy decisions that are introduced to curtail costs. This position is referred to on a weekly basis in the context of what is read out by the Chairman. Therefore, I ask members to have particular regard for the constraints on the committee in so far as cuts to home help, home hours and so on are concerned, relative to policy only.

The Accounting Officer is responsible for ensuring that systems of control are in place to ensure that money is not wasted and that public bodies can remain within budget. That is where our focus and the focus of this meeting will be. I trust this clarifies the matter. I call on Mr. Tony O'Brien to make his opening statement.