Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 23 September 2021

Public Accounts Committee

Financial Statement 2020 and Related Matters: HSE (Resumed)

10:00 am

Mr. Paul Reid:

I will make a brief comment. From the range of oversights I touched on with the previous Deputy, in particular in some of the internal audits completed by the HSE on some section 38 and 39 organisations, a range of issues come up, no more than for ourselves, as the Deputy has just outlined. Issues arise relating to board governance, travel and subsistence, income controls, procurement, purchasing, segregation of duties, human resources, HR, and petty cash. I am not saying they all default and they all have those issues, but they would be some of the consistent issues that arise. A lot of these organisations are registered as charities and have their own boards. They are accountable and the board members are accountable. We provide an oversight in some cases for a portion of their total income streams, but they are the consistent issues that come up as part of audits.