Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. We will ask the clerk to the committee to do that. The fact that an investigation or an independent review is going to be carried out is welcome. We will ask for a timeline in that regard.

No. 482 is correspondence from Mr. Ray Mitchell, assistant national director of the HSE, dated 25 March 2021. It provides information requested by the committee in respect of the proposed integrated financial management and procurement system, IFMS. We intend to conduct an engagement with the HSE on this project. We will note and publish this item. We have dealt with this issue before with the HSE. This integrated financial management system was proposed back in 2014 and the process started at that stage. Late last year, the committee was somewhat concerned when it came to our attention that this was not even completed at that point. The procurement process was only awarded in 2019 and Covid has now pushed out the date to an unspecified timeline, as I noted from the correspondence I read yesterday. We need to flag that, all of seven years later, not alone do we not have an integrated financial management system, but members will recall that when the HSE and the Department appeared before the committee, their representatives told us they would have 80% of the procurement spend brought into a process such as this by 2024. That 2024 date seems to have gone out the window and there is now no date by which that will be done.`

As Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, I consider that response totally unsatisfactory and I am very concerned about it. We have been through the Covid emergency but the fact that the HSE has done away with any attempt to put a final date in place or to have any kind of benchmark or staging post by which stage progress would be made on this has nearly left this on the never-never. I propose that we revisit this issue with the Department, its new Secretary-General and the HSE. This situation is totally unsatisfactory. I could not believe it when the matter came before the committee last year and we were made aware no progress had been made in the six years since the process had started. It has now been seven years since the process started and even the very distant staging post of having 80% progress made by 2024 has now been deleted. That is not acceptable. Deputy Carthy wishes to comment on this issue.