Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

In opening the meeting of the committee on 29 September 2022, I introduced the HSE’s financial statements for 2021, and outlined a number of issues I had highlighted in my audit report. The latter concerned losses incurred by the HSE in respect of procurement of PPE items; ongoing non-compliant procurement; and the impact of the May 2021 cyberattack on the HSE’s operations. In the interests of saving the committee’s time, I do not propose to revisit those matters.

Given public debate in the past few days about the repayment of long-term care charges unlawfully applied, I draw the committee’s attention to note 9 of the HSE’s financial statements. A note with similar detail has been included in every set of the HSE’s financial statements since 2006. The note indicates that up to the end of 2021 a total of €486 million has been paid in respect of more than 20,300 claims for repayment of long-stay charges improperly imposed on residents of public nursing homes in the period 1976 to 2005. At the outset of the repayment scheme the HSE projected that the costs that would be incurred under the statutory repayments scheme might amount to €1 billion and it disclosed this potential liability. By 2021, most of the claims deemed to be valid under the scheme had been paid.

A number of claims received by the HSE were deemed ineligible under the repayment scheme, in a number of cases because they related to persons who were, or had been, residents of private nursing homes. Beginning in 2007, the HSE disclosed the number of such claims on hand at the year end. The disclosure did not include an estimate of any potential liability attaching to such cases and explained the legal reasons for not including an estimate. The disclosure continued to be made up to and including end 2013.

Those claim cases were subsequently managed by the Department of Health and any settlements made were charged to subhead D of the Vote for health. The accounting policies for appropriation accounts now require a note on the aggregate value and number of cases settled each year but do not require this to be disaggregated by type of case. The accounting policies also require a contingent liability note in the appropriation account, but specifically excludes disclosures that could prejudice the Exchequer’s position in court cases or other negotiations.