THE LETTER THAT SET ALARM BELLS RINGING FOR CORR

THERE is one document, above all others, that convinced Shane Corr to turn whistleblower.

It was a scathing August 2016 letter to then HSE boss Tony O’Brien from the then chairman of the HSE Audit Committee, Peter Cross.

The letter, written in an unusually frank manner, deals with the HSE’s continued failure to fix systemic and ongoing financial control weaknesses in the health system.

Mr Cross wrote the letter in response to a damning set of findings by State spending watchdog, the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG), that year. He also pointed out that the ‘disturbing control weaknesses’ at the HSE are routinely criticised by the C&AG in this fashion every year.

‘You’ll be aware that the reports of the Internal Audit Division identify many tens of important control weaknesses each quarter and that the Audit Committee has repeatedly advised the Directorate to take strong action to rectify these weaknesses locally and systemically,’ Mr Cross wrote.

‘It seems to me we find weaknesses and breaches everywhere we look, and that the system of control needs to be addressed from top to bottom.’

Mr Cross added that no commercial entity would tolerate such practices. ‘The controls issues described in the OCAG’s [Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General] report are basic, extensive and, I believe, systemic,’ he wrote, adding that they amount to ‘a litany of internal weaknesses and breaches of controls including some of the most essential and fundamental to a system of internal financial control’.

‘The fact that such simple and fundamental controls can be breached so regularly, and that calls for their remediation can apparently be ignored, must be a cause for deep concern to the Directorate in relation to the HSE’s stewardship of its assets and indeed for the reliability of its accounting,’ Mr Cross’s letter added.

‘These weaknesses go to the heart of the principles of propriety and regularity,’ the correspondence continued.

‘Each 1% of HSE funding lost through weak financial controls amounts to €140million lost to patient care annually. I am confident that the HSE’s control weaknesses annually allow for at least that amount of waste.’

Detailing a list of 31 significant weakness requiring immediate attention to meet minimum control standards, Mr Cross asked whether HSE bosses care at all about their responsibilities, writing: ‘In relation to the HSE’s pervasive and extensive weaknesses in financial controls, the overwhelming concern is whether the responsible mangers really care.’