Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have touched on an important issue. Again it is an issue because one would have assumed that the reporting of all public bodies would be in line with approved international accounting and financial standards, but the Minister can overrule that in legislation. On the legislation for the HSE, in particular, and other health organisations such as we have seen here, there is a statutory provision to account for it in the way the Minister says so, notwithstanding that it is not in accordance with international accounting standards.

Another major example of this that the Comptroller and Auditor General will give is the almost €2 billion in claims against the State, mainly for medical negligence is not recorded in the HSE's financial statement. There is no organisation of this size anywhere in the world that can produce its financial statement, given that it has a calculated estimated liability of the claims against it, and utterly exclude them. They put a little note to say the State Claims Agency are dealing with it, but they are not recorded in the accounts in the normal way. It is in line with the legislation passed by the Oireachtas but it is not in line with anything else.