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

I accept that. The HSE had significant budgets over those years. At the last meeting, the then chief executive officer, Mr. Magee, admitted that the systems were not fit for purpose. Acknowledging that in 2012, not having done anything about it from the establishment of the HSE in 2005, in spite of the report to which Mr. Woods referred, would seem to me to be a complete breakdown of management. Management, and its reports, cannot function properly without gathering information by technology. That is essentially the world we live in. The HSE has failed miserably over these years to put in place a system that actually works. From what we heard today, what was actually done about the €74 million that was outstanding? Were debt collectors sent out to bring in that €74 million as the HSE did when dealing with citizens who attended accident and emergency departments and did not pay? Was the same effort made to put that in place to collect the €74 million? Deputy O'Donnell suggested that we did not just arrive at this point, the practice has grown up over the years. It would seem once again that within an agency of the State, nobody cried "Stop".