DEPARTMENT OF Health officials took part in eight of the 31 controversial foreign trips associated with the Skill training programme, it has emerged.
An internal Department of Health report into the Skill controversy also shows that its officials participated in two other trips – to Vancouver and Minneapolis/St Paul – which had not been identified in a recent report on the issue by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
The Department of Health report, to be published today, will say that it had paid €6,290 in subsistence claims on foot of the foreign visits.
However, the report will also point out that this was not the total cost of the trips as “airline and accommodation costs were met separately from non-departmental sources”.
An internal HSE audit report has contended that funding for these trips came from an annual €250,000 grant provided by the Department of Health to an account in the name of the trade union Siptu and controlled by two individuals with close associations to the union.
Siptu has maintained that it knew nothing about these payments and that the account was not authorised by it.
Separately, it expected that the secretary general of the Department of Health, Michael Scanlan, will defend the foreign trips when he appears before the Dáil Public Accounts Committee today, which is holding a hearing into the Skill controversy.
Mr Scanlan is expected to say that papers relating to a number of these visits will show that they were relevant to the problems being addressed in the health service at the time.
He is also expected to argue that having management and union figures on these delegations reflected the policy at the time of developing and supporting a partnership approach to organisational change.
It is understood that Mr Scanlan will also say that Department of Health officials who took part in these trips did so with the prior knowledge and approval of their line managers.
Mr Scanlan is expected to accept the findings of the recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General that the terms on which the Department of Health had made available funding earmarked for the Siptu health division were not clear and that it did not adequately inform the Office of Health Management (through which the money was initially channelled) or later the HSE of the outputs expected from it.
Yesterday, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Bernard Allen said that it would be looking for straight answers from senior management in the health service on the ongoing revelations surrounding the Skill programme.
“Some of findings in this latest report are astounding,” said Mr Allen.
“There seems to have been a complete absence of any control or oversight on how large amounts of taxpayers’ money was spent. It appears that some were living the high life and letting the public pick up the tab.”
The Labour Party said that if the HSE and the Minister for Health had serious questions to answer in this matter, then so too did Siptu.
A separate Department of Finance internal report into the Skill controversy is understood to have been referred to the Attorney General.
Separately yesterday, the HSE sought a partnership forum for the health service to voluntarily close its bank account. The HSE wants to operate this service itself in future.
About €20 million has been paid into the partnership forum over recent years.
The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report found that nearly €900,000 had been paid by the partnership forum into the same controversial account as the €250,000 annual grant.