MAHONY’S €40K ‘NOT ACCOUNTED FOR IN ANY WRITTEN AGREEMENT’
RHONA Mahony’s €40,000 top-up is not accounted for in any written agreement, the auditors investigating the payment found.
The NMH failed to return any documentation setting out an arrangement whereby the hospital paid its Master an additional salary payment for work carried-out in the separate Semi-Private Clinic.
The report notes that there is an absence of accounting documentation in respect to the payment. The NMH failed to return invoices, receipts, an instruction to pay and a confirmation of payment evidencing the transfer of funds, the HSE audit states.
It states: ‘There is a lack of documentation (e.g. a Memorandum of Understanding, an agreement, etc) regarding the establishment of the arrangement for the payment of €40,000 pa to current and former Masters (CEOs) and for the individual transactions (e.g. instruction to pay, confirmation of payments made, invoices, receipts etc) between the NMH and the Semi-Private Clinic (Medical Fund) in respect of each payment to the former and current Masters (CEOs).
The hospital stated that the €40,000 payment made to Dr Rhona Mahony originates from ‘the income of the semi-private clinic.’
The audit report stated: ‘While tax and levies were deducted from the additional payments made to the senior managers including the current and former Masters (CEOs), NMH’s processing of these additional payments outside its main payroll system, and through a bank accounts not utilised for payroll payments, lacks transparency and openness.’
Furthermore the NMH was not reimbursed by the Semi-Private Clinic for the €40,000 top-up it made on its behalf, for two years.
The payment was made by NMH to Dr Mahony in 2012, but it was not until March 2014 that the clinic repaid the hospital, the report said.
‘Essentially a public-funded body, NMH, subsidised the cash flow of a private entity, the Semi-Private Clinic (Medical Fund), for a significant period of time,’ the audit states.
In February 7, 2014, auditor Geraldine Smith wrote that the HSE was due back before the Public Accounts Committee in a few weeks but still didn’t have the documentation requested ‘to support the Master’s asserations’ about the payment. She said the matter could be resolved by NMH providing certain documents.
Such documents could include a signed note from the trustees setting out the position of the payment; a copy of any agreement between the Trust and the hospital in relation to the arrangement; a copy of the instruction from the Trust to the Hospital to make the payment, a copy of the Master’s payslip showing the payment through payroll, or a copy of her P60.
Holles Street has rejected the claim that it failed to provide adequate documentation, saying this ‘contradicts the report’s own reference to copies of the Master’s invoices and monthly invoices’.