The group that operates children’s hospitals in Dublin has said it sought a donation of €30,000 from a company operating a restaurant service in one of its facilities to reduce the cost of tickets for staff for attending a Christmas party.
Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) chief executive Lucy Nugent said this was “wrong” and that the money was given back a number of months ago after the payment was queried by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his 2024 audit of the organisation.
Nugent told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee on Thursday that food and retail company Aramark had a contract to run restaurant services at the children’s hospital in Crumlin.
She said CHI carried out an internal review following the comptroller’s report, which found that an employee at executive level sought the donation from Aramark in an attempt to keep down the cost of ticket prices for a Christmas party at the Guinness Store House in 2022 for staff from across its various hospitals and facilities.
READ MORE
“It was wrong”, she said.
The committee heard the request for funding was “verbal” and while there were some internal emails about the issue, and a former staff member provided some background information, there was no written correspondence available between the hospital group and Aramark.
CHI chief financial officer Sharon Gaffney said the description on the invoice was for “additional services”.
Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe said there were no additional services provided. Gaffney agreed this was the case.
Fine Gael TD James Geoghegan said Aramark had told The Irish Times the €30,000 payment to CHI was not for a Christmas party, but rather as a settlement for money owed.
The company said in the statement on Wednesday night: “Aramark held a concession for the running of a retail outlet in CHI. Retail revenues fell due to visitor restrictions during Covid. The payment was made as final reconciliation of concessions which was required arising from service interruptions caused by Covid restrictions.”
Nugent said CHI had internal emails – not with Aramark – and information from a former staff member to say the payment was towards the Christmas party.
She said she met the Aramark chief executive earlier this week and there had been concern or insinuation that the money represented “some sort of backhander, which it wasn’t”.
“The fault is on CHI. We are owning that. That is why we returned the money when we became aware that we had asked for it.”
The committee was also told that national children’s hospital builder Bam was expected to provide a new timeline on Friday for the substantial completion of the much-delayed development.
David Gunning, chief officer of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB), which is charged with delivering the hospital, insisted delays in finishing the work were due to the builder deploying insufficient staff and resources.
He said that while the project was close to completion, there were still issues causing delays.
“We have a number of issues with doors, manual and sliding. We have had issues with floors. We have 15 operating theatre floors that need to be replaced. We have had issues with water leaks coming from the outside and leaks within the building from some of the plumbing.”
Gunning said an issue regarding the cleaning of ventilation ducts had emerged in recent weeks.
NPHDB project director Phelim Devine said changes to designs had not delaying completion of the project, which he attributed to “rework and closing out defects”.
[ New national children’s hospital further delayed amid ventilation issueOpens in new window ]
