Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 11 April 2019

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:00 am

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will write to the Revenue Commissioners. Obviously they will not identify any particular case but if large cases that were before the Tax Appeals Commission have since been closed then it saves work for the Tax Appeals Commission if it does not have to deal with them. That in its own right is good. In light of that we will ask the commission to give us an estimate of the value of the cases currently remaining. We were speaking of €1.6 billion figure at one stage with a potential tax payment €1.1 billion but if a lot of those cases have been disposed of, then some of them may already have been paid or in some cases due refunds. We will ask the commission to give us an up-to-date figure. We had asked for the ten most recent or current high-value cases before it but we will now ask for the total quantum of cases currently on its files. It would be interesting to see if there has been movement on that.

No. 2092, received from Ray Mitchell, assistant national director, Health Service Executive, dated 27 March, relates to the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board. The correspondence contains one very interesting item that people may be surprised to note. The committee will bring in the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board and a date has been set for this to be on the work programme, which we will come to in a moment. In light of the PricewaterhouseCoopers', PwC, report published this week on the cost escalation that will be a very important meeting, and we will also discuss that in due course.

The cover note to the document the committee has been given says the correspondence deals with the consideration of the delivery options for phase B of the new children's hospital. It includes a detailed document that details the options going forward by the HSE. This was probably dealt with in November of last year before the decision was made by the Government. The document lists the three options for completing phase B: instruct BAM, the main contractor; instruct a new main contractor; or instruct a management contractor. The document includes a detailed assessment of the objectives and risks on each of the options. This document was prepared last autumn and a paragraph on its third page struck me immediately. It states "The HSE, at the request of the Department of Health, has sought input from a range of advisors including PwC and Alan Moore (Director of Strategic Capital Development in Northern Ireland), who have met with members of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board and the project delivery team, to inform their views on these questions." It is the first time I have spotted it but perhaps others have seen it before now. It appears to me that we have a situation where the Department of Health is telling us that PwC was one of its advisers last November or December in the decision on which option to choose. PwC was also appointed to do the cost escalation report, published in recent days at a cost of approximately €500,000 to the taxpayer.

The issue of conflict of interest in respect of PwC was raised extensively at the commencement of that process. They assured us that there was no conflict of interest with regard to BAM, the HSE or the board. At the time we asked how PwC could be invited to carry out that work without it going through a procurement process at that stage. They gave us a valid answer that it was already on the list of consultants that could be called on at any time based on a pre-tendering framework. That is fine but now we see that "The HSE, at the request of the Department of Health, has sought input from a range of advisors including PwC". These are the words of the HSE in relation to this decision. I want a detailed explanation, immediately and within 24 hours, from the Secretary General. This story will have to be resolved within 24 hours. People, including journalists, will be asking how is it that PwC was involved in the decision process looking at how the project would go forward into phase B, and yet was also commissioned to carry out the costs escalation report that was published yesterday. I do not know how this has arisen. I am going on the HSE document.

This is a separate issue from the Mazars report that was prepared for the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board on preliminary observations in relation to the construction capital cost escalation of the national children's hospital, issued on 17 December 2018. PwC was involved in the process in or around November 2018. A Mazars report on cost escalation was issued in December. The HSE then commissioned PwC to do another cost escalation report early this year, at another cost to the taxpayer. This was all in the process of how the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board arrived at its internal report, dated 28 November 2018, entitled Process to Guaranteed Maximum Price: Working Together for our Children. We need clarification of the statement by the HSE that PwC were involved.

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