Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

By way of background to these events, the Deputy will be aware that the establishment of the HSE in January 2005 with its own Vote, represented a major change in the management, organisation and delivery of health services. It involved the amalgamation of 17 separate health agencies that historically had accounted on an accruals accounting basis into a unified structure, eight of these agencies having had individual budgets in excess of €500 million. Moreover, as a consequence of the HSE being established as a Vote, with the attendant additional demands of accounting on a cash basis, it became necessary to derive a single cash-based appropriation account from these existing systems.

It is also necessary and important to recognise the practical issues associated with balancing an overall budget of €11,500 million during the first year of the HSE's existence. The chief executive officer of the HSE has argued that with the best will in the world, it was not possible in a very dispersed organisation to produce definitive accounts by the end of the first week at year end. Thus the figures available in January were provisional and somewhat different figures have now emerged.

I reject any suggestion of a major breach. Information was made available to me of a carry over on the capital side from the Department of Health and Children of up to 10% of its capital Vote which was €56.4 million and I included this information in the account. When it emerged in mid-January that this figure may not tally with the work being done by the HSE and because it was included in the account, I came to the House and informed the House of that fact. I informed the House that the appropriation account which is required by statute to be issued by 31 March, would clarify the issue as to what the precise carry over figure should be. The appropriation account has been signed off by the chief executive officer which as in the normal course of all appropriation accounts in Departments, will now be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General during the course of this year and will probably be issued in September with his audited accounts.

The capital carry over figure is €51 million. I have given the House the background information. There was a considerable organisational change in the first year of the Vote, not only in personnel but also in structures, over a total budget of €11.5 billion. If the outcome of the appropriation account is as has been communicated to us from the chief executive officer, the current overspend on current account is just €300,000. The actual figure for the capital carry over was not €56.4 million as intimated to me but €51 million. It is important to bring this to the attention of the House which I am doing by way of the reply to the Deputy's parliamentary question. Given the context and the background, what has emerged as the eventual outcome is a difference of €5.4 million on the capital carry over side.

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