HSE €14m overpayment for salaries and pensions unacceptable – Mairéad Farrell TD
25 March 2025
Sinn Féin spokesperson on Public Expenditure and Reform, Mairéad Farrell TD, has described as unacceptable revelations by RTÉ that an internal HSE audit found it had in excess of €14.6m in payroll overpayments recorded at the end of 2023.
The HSE wrote off almost €1m in 2022 and 2023. This overpayment had arisen from employees not being taken off the payroll (19% of cases), pension overpayment for an active or deceased person (16%), late entry of unpaid leave (15%), Master Data Error (14%) or sick leave related error.
Teachta Farrell said:
“This level of overpayments is quite worrying. I accept that the HSE has recouped a significant amount of this overpayment, but the fact that it happened in the first place is very worrying. Let’s remember that the HSE has spent a frightening amount of money on external consultants over the last few years. Some of this going to the biggest auditing/accountancy firms in the country.
“Surely you expect that in the year 2023 their internal controls would be tighter than this. There are some public bodies whose entire wage bill for the year could be €14m, so this is very high.
“As was reported by RTÉ, the internal audit rated the overall level of assurance for management on control of overpayments as ‘limited’.
“Given that the HSE spent €458m on consultants in 2022, which was the year before the period of audit, it raises questions about whether such money is being well spent. It’s worth noting that their spend on consultants in 2022 was €57m higher than in 2021.
“The government seems completely indifferent to overpayments/overspends whether they occur in the HSE, the OPW, or the Civil/public Service more broadly.
“All we get is the usual hand ringing, a ‘value for money’ report, and the standard rhetoric about ‘lessons learned’. Unless they are going to take meaningful legislative steps to ensure that new accountability mechanisms are put in place, then we’re going to be stuck on this merry go round.”
