{"id":620129,"date":"2026-09-10T07:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T07:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/620129\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T07:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T07:30:11","slug":"four-hse-regions-to-lose-power-over-day-to-day-spending-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/620129\/","title":{"rendered":"Four HSE regions to lose power over day-to-day spending \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four Health Service Executive<\/a> regions are to be stripped of their powers over day-to-day spending by the Government<\/a> in response to an overspend of hundreds of millions of euro, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

Speaking on The Irish Times Inside Politics podcast, Chambers said the overspend in the four regions was \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to lose autonomy on day-to-day spending and there\u2019ll be much greater controls introduced on all elements of pay and non-pay spending,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Listen to the interview with Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers <\/p>\n

The move would signal a blow to the Government\u2019s policy of decentralising healthcare decision-making from the HSE to six regional authorities, but Chambers said there has been \u201cineffective implementation\u201d by the HSE so far. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe budget in health has increased exponentially and the disconnect between the level of recruitment and the allocation that\u2019s been received isn\u2019t acceptable and that\u2019s why we need a much greater level of oversight but also a centralisation of the control environment,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Analysis: Move to strip four HSE regions of spending powers is a dramatic Government policy shiftOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Chambers said that while the health service had made improvements in some areas there was a significant disimprovement last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we saw in the August figures was a worsening of that and essentially completely ineffective management of the control system by the HSE and really poor performance by certain regions when it comes to financial management, when it comes to upholding the staff allocation that they were given.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said this was unacceptable to him and Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill<\/a>, with final steps being put in place with her department now. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019ll be much greater centralisation, particularly for four regions where they will lose essentially the autonomy they\u2019ve been given in the structure that\u2019s been stood up in the last 12 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is understood that spending powers are to be removed from the HSE regions in the West and North West, the South West, Dublin South East and Dublin and Midlands regions. There are six HSE regions in total.<\/p>\n

Chambers said some of the executive regional structures have shown a \u201ccompletely ineffective ability to manage the budget that they\u2019ve been allocated\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said there was strong evidence from a clinical perspective to continue enhancing regional structures and their community focus. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut from a financial management perspective, in my view, we\u2019re going to have to centralise a lot of the financial management and governance for a sustained period of time until we see much greater alignment between the budget that\u2019s been allocated and the out-turn position.\u201d<\/p>\n

He predicted that would extend through much of next year, with the overspend this year set to have an impact on the health budget in 2027. <\/p>\n

Overspending issues emerged in the HSE regions in the early part of this year, with the agency\u2019s chief executive Anne O\u2019Connor placing three \u2013 Dublin and South East, Dublin and Midlands, and South West \u2013 in what is known as \u201ctier three escalation\u201d, introducing employment controls and greater scrutiny on spending. <\/p>\n

An internal HSE report showed the HSE had an overall deficit of \u20ac577 million at the end of July, with all six regions reporting overspending to differing degrees. Official HSE minutes from April show its governing board felt there was a need then for greater clarity and consistency in governance structures, alongside stronger central oversight and co-ordination. <\/p>\n

Separately, Chambers said decisions on increases to the carbon tax<\/a> \u2013 which were deferred in the spring \u2013 would be made before Budget 2027<\/a> is announced next month. <\/p>\n

He warned that any indefinite deferral would be narrowing the tax base and come at the cost of higher expenditure while also undermining the \u201cpolluter pays\u201d principle of climate policy. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe principle of the carbon tax and the trajectory of it increasing should sustain and should continue,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cmatters relating to the carbon tax have to be connected solely to timing and sequencing, but not undermining the policy principle\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four Health Service Executive regions are to be stripped of their powers over day-to-day spending by the Government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,7038],"class_list":["post-620129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620129","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=620129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}