Documents ‘not made available to auditors’
THE HSE audit team said some documents were not made available when they visited the National Maternity Hospital for a promised viewing of the files.
During a meeting with the HSE Director General, Tony O’Brien, in November 2013, Dr Mahony (who was accompanied by fellow consultant Prof Declan Keane) told the State the source of the funds for the Master’s additional payments ‘was the group practice operated by the hospital’s consultant obstetricians/gynaecologists which provides services to semi-private obstetric patients’.
The report reads: ‘The Master (CEO) stated that the payments to her, which are made on behalf of the group private practice trust fund via the NMH payroll to consultant clinicians including the Master, were separately itemised on payslips and P60s and she confirmed the existence of documentation regarding the arrangement.’
The HSE chief then requested that the Master provide ‘documentary proofs of the source of the private funds for validation by HSE Internal Audit’.
According to the report, the Master submitted a one-page ‘unsigned note of what had been articulated at the meeting’ but was advised the following day that it was insufficient.
The audit team then emailed the Master on two more occasions to set out ‘the exact documentation required and advised of the possibility that further queries might arise from the documentation provided.
The report read: ‘Internal Audit also emphasised that clarification and documentation regarding the arrangement for payment of additional privately sourced sums to the other senior staff in the hospital was also required.’
Dr Mahony contacted the team on December 9 and 19 to advise that she felt the information being requested ‘related to her private practice and she considered this to be private’.
‘She stated that the non-HSE funded payments related to professional fees paid to a single practice account and that it was not appropriate to provide details as public funds were not involved and that the financial details of the single practice account were not a matter for the HSE,’ the report detailed.
‘As the Master (CEO) had disagreed with NMH’s description of the sources of the additional salary payments and had confirmed to the Director General on 28th November that there was documentation to prove her assertion, HSE sought this documentary evidence.
‘The Master was advised it was only by providing this information that transparency could be brought,’ the report stated.