Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

It was decided to pursue this course in 1995. I do not wish to make a political point, but nobody on this side of the House was in office when this decision was made. It has recently come to light that the money was not appropriately spent at the time. There was a system for the 11 different health boards. The HSE employed outside consultants to conduct its internal review, which cost £99,227 for 94 hours consultancy. In light of that review, it was decided it should not be rolled out until it appropriately specifies what it wants for a unified organisation. The HSE pay 30,000 staff using the system and it has the human resource records of about 70,000 staff. In total, the HSE has about 102,000 staff, when hospital staff are included. That figure can vary from time to time.

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