Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 October 2025

Public Accounts Committee

Financial Statements 2024: Health Service Executive

2:00 am

Mr. Bernard Gloster:

If they do not work for us, they are not available. I have no jurisdiction to investigate anybody who no longer works for us, and that is the truth of it. I do not have any compellability for investigation whatsoever. The reality is, and, again, whether we like it or not -,and just to be absolutely clear with Deputy Dolan,- that I am looking back retrospectively and I was not involved at the time. This occurred during Covid. It occurred during a period when there was very high demand for things to be fast moving, agile and so on. Most controls were either relaxed or set aside to some degree. What we find when we look back on a situation such as this and question someone is that suddenly 25, 30 or 35 people are all cited at different levels in different ways. It is simply impossible to get to a level of accountability on it. This is a big regret because I am a huge believer in accountability. People did fail in their job here. People failed in their duty regardless of Covid.