Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Friday, 15 July 2016

Public Accounts Committee

HSE Financial Statement 2015

10:00 am

Mr. Tony O'Brien:

Sure. The Deputy is correct and that is why I am here. That is part of my function, to answer these questions with him. In answer to previous questions, I have set out a number of steps that have been taken, at my initiative, in response to earlier adverse events. Good governance is not a static concept. One has to introduce things continually, find out what loopholes people have found and then try to plug them. As I said, we introduced the annual compliance statement for section 38s, which is where the vast bulk of this money goes. It is typical, when managing risk, that one starts with one's greatest area of risk which is, generally speaking, related to the greatest amount of money. We established the compliance unit because, frankly, over the years of massive change, reduction of staff and a lot of attrition of people with significant experience, I reached the view that many of those at local level were overstretched in terms of what was being required of them and did not have either the time or the ability to track this in an efficient way. We set up the national compliance unit to provide oversight, as Mr. Purcell described, and we are continually strengthening that.

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