Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Public Accounts Committee

Vote Management and Budgetary Situation in 2012: Discussion with Department of Health and HSE

6:10 pm

Mr. Tony O'Brien:

The issue of the €72 million is in the public domain and it relates to cash management, given we are referring to a cash as opposed to an accruals based method of accounting. It also refers to stock management; a number of areas to do with procurement, in other words, reducing some areas of procurement; significant curtailments in discretionary expenditure around such areas as staff travel, printing and so on, which we are simply not doing anymore; and it includes €6 million related to the discontinuation of funding for certain products, such as glucosamine. Those measures are going well. By their nature, they are back loaded because cash management and stock control reductions are very much loaded towards the end of the year, but there is significant experience in the HSE regarding those measures and we are confident they will land.