Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputy Joan Collins. I fully support the motion. We were all surprised when the news broke in respect of repayment of more than €12 million by Lloyds Pharmacy to the HSE after it had incorrectly billed the primary care reimbursement service, PCRS, for dispensing fees. It is a serious issue which needs to be addressed fully within the PCRS to make sure public money is paid out in an appropriate fashion and to ensure companies are not in a position similar to Lloyds effectively to defraud the State in respect of such payments.

The Minister said the investigation was initiated by the HSE. As I understood it, the investigation took place following the intervention of a whistleblower and the exposure of the issue in the media. I wonder to what extent the HSE was involved in identifying this problem in the first place.

Through the scheme, Lloyds Pharmacy was able to increase its dispensing fees by 66%, which is a huge increase, especially during a period the Government was trying to cut euro and cent from payments to social welfare recipients. It would be interesting to compare the number of inspections and controls in place for people who benefit under these schemes with the number in place for big businesses that operate the schemes.

While the money has been repaid to the HSE, it is important that this issue be investigated fully by all the regulatory authorities. The executive has been slow to say whether it will refer this to the Garda fraud squad or the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland. It says it is keeping its counsel on that for the time being. How long will it take officials to decide that this needs to be tackled? If an individual social welfare recipient had defrauded the State of a sum much lower than this, he or she would be hauled before the courts and held to account. We should expect as citizens that large companies would be treated in the same way and would not be given carte blancheto continue in this fashion.

It is worrying that the Minister said that following analysis and restructuring, the PCRS audit function has been and continues to be strengthened with the development of dedicated resources. What audit function was available to the service prior to this? Has this change been in response to the overpayment of €12 million? More than €2 billion is paid out annually by the PCRS and one would imagine that a robust and comprehensive audit function was in place and the service should not now be appointing inspectors to manage these contracts. That needs to be addressed quickly by the Minister. Will he explain why these appointments have been made only this year and were not made earlier to monitor and control the expenditure of this significant sum of public money?

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