Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy. It is a really good question and one I have asked. I wrote to the HSE quite some time ago to say almost exactly what the Deputy has said. Given the vast amount of money that is being spent, much of it outside the normal checks and balances that are in place for procurement, I asked whether the HSE could do an audit of it and come back to us. It has given an undertaking to do that. We are all quite rightly focused on the appropriate expenditure and the good expenditure of PPE. When this audit comes back, it is entirely possible that there will be have been purchases outside of the normal procurement process. In fact, I suspect we will see that. When that happens, and it probably will be the Committee of Public Accounts which will look at it, and maybe this committee as well, let us remember the pressure that they were under and that we all put them under to do whatever was required.