Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 11 May 2023

Public Accounts Committee

Appropriation Accounts 2021
Financial Statements 2021: HSE
Special Report No. 114 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Emergency Procurement of Ventilators by the HSE
Vote 38 - Health

9:30 am

Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

Of the 581 we got from our traditional suppliers, they would all have gone through the normal certification process under an engineer certified by the actual company in the actual model. We did not have that level of certification for the new suppliers so we got an expert company to carry out tests. Forty percent of what we tested failed, which was a much higher failure rate than expected. We further tested some of them on site and, again, the results of that were not positive. Therefore, they were all quarantined. As we said in the opening statement, we took financial risks to avoid and manage patient safety risks. We did not take risks with patient safety. We only sought WHO-approved specifications and then we carried out two series of tests, and then we quarantined.