Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

A number of weeks ago, the Comptroller and Auditor General briefed the Committee of Public Accounts on the amount the State has spent on personal protective equipment, PPE, over the last 18 months. That spend has amounted to more than €1 billion so far. The Comptroller and Auditor General stated that the HSE has written off €375 million worth of PPE thus far. This is an eye-watering figure but it gets worse. This figure includes more than 1,800 ventilators, ordered at a cost of €81 million, which were never received. These were paid for but never received. We all understand there was a clamour for these products internationally and that we had to move very quickly but this is public money, that is, taxpayers' money. Will the Minister launch an investigation into the squandering of all of this public money?

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