Parliamentary Question addressed to the Minister for Health

To ask the Minister for Health if he will clarify when the report on prompt payments by the Health Service Executive will be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter?

Reply

My Department is committed to the publishing of a regular report on prompt payments by the Health Service Executive. Officials from my Department are addressing the matter with the Executive to ensure that publication of prompt payments is in place shortly. The HSE is very conscious of the difficulties facing companies today and is committed to standard payment terms of 30 days. However, given the multitude of processing centres across the HSE, and indeed within its individual units, in order to meet a 15 day period, it would require the introduction of a single financial and procurement system. Whilst there are plans in this regard, it will be some time before this is in place. Taking into account that over 7,000 invoices are received daily by the Executive across a multiplicity of service delivery units, it has consistently been my Department’s view that it is not logistically possible to apply the 15 day payment rule to the HSE at this time.

Notwithstanding this, the introduction of Prompt Payments legislation and the refinancing arrangements introduced and overseen by this Department have seen the HSE comprehensively address the issue of late payment. It should be noted that as a result of the improvement in payments, the HSE only paid €324,000 in prompt payment interest in 2011, which was just one third of 1% of its non-pay budget for that year, and were the Executive compelled to comply with a 15 day payment, services would have to be reduced. 2012 is already a very challenging year for the health services. However, my Department and the HSE are continuing to look at the matter to see how best this issue can be dealt with.