Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will hold it over until next week for discussion. I am holding over the noting of the National Asset Management Agency 2018 accounts. We are not noting them today; we are holding over noting and discussing them until next week.

The next item is the Health Service Executive accounts. They received a clear audit opinion, but attention is drawn to the fact that, on the direction of the Minister, the HSE has not recognised in the financial statements the liability, estimated at €198 million, arising from a legal settlement with medical consultants which was agreed and adjudicated on by the High Court in June 2018. There is also recurrent non-compliant procurement by the HSE, including 30% by value of a sample of payments, totalling €66 million, examined in the course of the audit. Representatives of the HSE are scheduled to appear before the committee, but I wish to raise certain issues with the accounts. I want people to listen because the financing of the HSE is an important issue in the public arena.

These are the financial statements that were signed off on by the chairperson and chief financial officer on Monday, 13 May 2019. The Comptroller and Auditor General completed his report on that day. On the Friday before, there was a development that I, or any member of a Committee of Public Accounts, would find unacceptable. It involves what the Minister or the Department on his instructions did before the board signed off on its accounts. The net operating deficit shown in the financial statements is €85.174 million for last year. That is the audited figure. However, it masks an issue referred to by the Comptroller and Auditor General, namely, that a High Court settlement on consultants' pay was adjudicated on in mid-June 2018. In the normal course, the accounts should include a provision for that liability of €198 million in the financial statements. That would be the case for every organisation which produces accounts to international financial standards. On the Friday before the accounts were signed off on, the Department, on the instructions of the Minister, issued a direction to the HSE not to include that liability. However, it is a liability for the HSE. Had the Minister not interfered with the final preparation of the accounts on the weekend before they were signed off on and audited, the deficit for the HSE last year would have been noted as being €283 million. This gross interference by the Minister or the Department is an attempt to massage the figures, fool the people and present unacceptable figures to the Committee of Public Accounts. On the weekend the accounts were being finalised, the Department issued a letter to state the settlement of €198 million was outstanding and the HSE was formally directed to exclude it from the financial statements. That is outrageous.

When I referred to the Minister, I meant the Department. We know that the Minister is the political head of the Department, but the committee deals with the Accounting Officer. We will write to the Accounting Officer to seek a detailed explanation of the rationale for a direction issued to the HSE to exclude the liability of €198 million from its annual audited financial statements. If it had not been issued, the HSE accounts being presented today would show a deficit of €283 million, but it produced accounts which showed a deficit of €85 million. I have made my point. I want people to listen to what is going on. Accounting Officers need to control expenditure, but presenting accounts that do not present a true and fair view in accordance with international accounting standards is not acceptable to the committee. We may end up rejecting the accounts. It is probably a new issue of which people are not aware. It has only come to light because we are looking at it today.