\n One of the country\u2019s largest training hospitals has apologised \u201cunreservedly\u201d for its governance failures, but insisted\u00a0\u20ac6.2m\u00a0spent on radiology services from a company governed by its own staff was \u201cvalue for money\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n The chief executive of Beaumont Hospital on Dublin\u2019s northside told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) the \u20ac6.2m\u00a0was to\u00a0serve \u201cpatient need\u201d.\n <\/p>\n
\n The company in question had 20 of Beaumont\u2019s own staff as directors, while only four of those had made declarations of that potential conflict of interest in their statement of interests in 2024.<\/p>\n
\n Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) Seamus McCarthy had outlined to the committee \u20ac1.5m had been spent on the company in 2024.<\/p>\n
\n Chief executive Anne Coyle, who had offered an \u201cunreserved apology\u201d to the PAC for the \u201chistoric control issues\u201d outlined in the hospital\u2019s 2024 accounts, acknowledged under questioning the expenditure on the radiology vendor had been \u20ac6.2m, and none of that spending had been subject to a public competition.<\/p>\n
\n She also acknowledged no additional statements of interest regarding the firm\u00a0had since been received by the remaining 16 Beaumont staff members, also on its board.<\/p>\n
\n Asked by Fine Gael\u2019s James Geoghegan what she was apologising for if she believed the \u20ac6.2m expenditure had been justified, Ms Coyle replied \u201cgovernance failures\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n Beaumont incurred \u20ac17.9m in such non-compliant procurement in 2024, one of several issues highlighted by Mr McCarthy in his address to the committee.<\/p>\n
\n Others included a \u20ac51.3m deficit in just two years between 2023 and 2024; insurance claims worth \u20ac413,000 which were either not collectable or disallowed; \u20ac704,000 worth of staff overpayments accumulated by 2024; and a new HR payroll system gone \u20ac2.8m over budget for a final spend of \u20ac4.8m.<\/p>\n
\n That system was also procured without a public competition, Ms Coyle told the committee.<\/p>\n
\n Of the matter of the payroll system overspend, the disclosure of which late into the hospital\u2019s previous appearance at PAC in October 2025 had seen it harshly criticised,\u00a0Ms Coyle said: \u201cIt was never the intention of the hospital to withhold information from the committee.”\n <\/p>\n
\n She added \u201cin the spirit of transparency\u201d, she was disclosing to the committee a further issue had been discovered during the hospital’s self-audit in 2025 in terms of vendor misclassifications.<\/p>\n
\n Director of finance at Beaumont, Fran Hanlon, said the issue was \u201cabsolutely\u201d not material to the \u20ac169m spent on vendors in 2025, but said it was nevertheless not possible to put a value on the matter at present as it remained under consideration.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI assure the committee that the board and the executive team of Beaumont Hospital are deeply committed to ensuring the hospital is managed responsibly and transparently,\u201d Ms Coyle said.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe recognise the trust placed in us to use public and donated funds prudently, and this responsibility guides every decision we make,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\n Mr Geoghegan noted three of the five hospitals subject to audit by Mr McCarthy \u2014 the others being St Vincent\u2019s and St James\u2019s, both in Dublin \u2014 have now come before the PAC to offer apologies for governance failures, \u201cwhich does lead me to be concerned about what other governance failures are out there\u201d.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the country\u2019s largest training hospitals has apologised \u201cunreservedly\u201d for its governance failures, but insisted\u00a0\u20ac6.2m\u00a0spent on radiology…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":["post-518148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}