Opinion

Ian Guider: Sticking plaster of more money will not fix bloated mess of HSE

An interim solution to the failings of the HSE will be cobbled together, but the same problems will exist next year

Ireland spends almost a quarter of its entire annual budget on health, which has been allocated a staggering €22.5 billion this year

In one sense the admission from the HSE that it has hired hundreds of staff well beyond what it had budgeted for is jaw dropping.

How can any organisation credibly say it adheres to best financial governance if it cannot even keep track of how many people it is recruiting?

However, we have normalised the dysfunctional state of the HSE to the extent that, regardless of how it struggles to keep within its budget, we ...