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

They were told they needed an integrated financial management system eight years ago. Imagine the chairperson of a board or someone in middle management coming back to a body like this committee, eight years later, and saying that nothing will happen until the back end of 2025. I am open to correction, but I think that was the last date we got from them. That means it will be over 11 years from the time they were told they needed such a system. That is more than a decade. We cannot run public services like that. It is bananas. That is the only way I can describe it. It is bananas that they do not have a single, integrated financial management system.

The more I look at the HSE, and others here have been looking at it for longer than me, the more incredible it seems. I know that as Secretary General, Mr. Moloney could devote his entire Department to looking at this but he cannot do so because he has his finger in a lot of pies and has lots of responsibilities. That said, in terms of the area of health, the Civil Service and the Oireachtas must get on top of this. The public willingly pay their taxes. Every week tax is taken out of employees' wages before they see it and the self-employed pay tax every three months to Revenue but at the other end of that, we just cannot seem to get the services.

Since coming into office, has Mr. Moloney taken up the issue of an integrated financial management system with the CEO of the HSE and the Secretary General of the Department of Health?