Over 400 public sector staff were involved in working on the two healthcare computer projects suspended on Thursday, it has emerged. Martin Wall, Liam Reid and Mark Brennock report.
Around 200 health sector personnel were involved on a full-time basis in the introduction of the PPARS payroll and FISP financial information systems. The remainder had a part-time involvement.
This was in addition to the outside consultants working on the projects, for which the health sector paid out over €60 million.
Consultants Deloitte received €40 million in consultancy fees for the PPARs system and a separate €18.12 million for work on the FISP financial information system project.
IBM was commissioned to carry out a major technical review of the project in July 2004 which identified a series of fundamental problems in how the project was being managed and operated.
The company was then brought in to carry out remediation and implementation work, and has been paid €3 million in fees to date on the project.
It is understood that one of the main concerns of the Department of Finance about the two projects related to the fact that personnel from the external consultants were carrying out work which could have been performed by clerical officer programmers who either were already working in the public sector or who could have been recruited on a temporary basis.
The Department of Finance has criticised the governance and management of the projects by health service management.
The Department of Health is expected to reply to these criticisms shortly when it receives a report from the HSE.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health has confirmed that three of its staff sat on a key watchdog board which oversaw the implementation of the PPARS project.
The "national project board", which met monthly, and also included senior health board staff, was responsible for ensuring that the project was well managed, came in on time and within budget.
Asked whether officials had raised any concerns about the project back in the department, a spokesman for the Department of Health said that concerns were raised by the project board, which led to two separate independent consultants' reports in 2002 and 2004.
Both concluded there were no major problems with the project.
Minister for Health Mary Harney announced yesterday that in future the Department of Health would have to secure her specific sanction before commissioning external consultants.
She said there had been an "excessive dependence" on consultants.
Information released to Fine Gael's finance spokesman, Richard Bruton, shows that 13 Government departments spent €174 million on almost 3,000 consultants' reports and public relations contracts since 1998.
The Department of the Environment spent the most during this period. It paid out €32.5 million to private-sector companies for reports and other consultancy services, The Department of Finance spent almost €30 million on such contracts.
The new figures do not include the sums paid out by the Departments of Health and of Justice, which make up 33 per cent of Government spending.
Mr Bruton yesterday criticised "the senseless waste of taxpayers' money on expensive consultant reports, which are never implemented".
He said there appeared to be no guidelines in place for commissioning consultants or reports.
He said the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources had paid for 336 reports and consultancies to be carried out since 1998 - one report a week over the last 6½ years.
Micheál Martin, during his term as health minister, ordered 145 reports to be undertaken at a cost of €30.1 million to the taxpayer - €207,000 a report, said Mr Bruton.