The Health Service Executive and the Irish Independent

The Press Ombudsman has decided to uphold a complaint by Mr Paul Connors, National Director for Communications, Health Services Executive, that an article in the Irish Independent on 18 October 2013 was in breach of Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines.

The article, which was based on a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, referred to what it described as a “revelation that the HSE is apparently incapable of accurately accounting for €90 million of taxpayers’ money” and stated that “no-one will ever be held to account for this.”

Mr Connors maintained that the Comptroller had at no stage stated or implied that the HSE did not “accurately account” for the money.  He said that if the HSE had in fact failed to do so, the Comptroller would not have provided an unqualified audit certificate for that year, as it had.

The newspaper responded that the article commented honestly and legitimately on a significant matter of public interest, and maintained that the relevant section of the Comptroller’s report corroborated what was stated in the article, and was therefore an accurate reflection of what was stated in the report.   Its offer to publish an article from the HSE which could address the issues in question was declined by the complainant.

The section of the Comptroller’s report on which the statements complained about were based was contained in a chapter of the Report entitled “Budget Management in the Health Services Executive”, which was submitted by Mr Connors in support of his complaint.   This document made it clear that what generated the Comptroller’s concern was “the effectiveness of [the HSE’s] budget planning and budget management,”  an element of the HSE’s operation which fell within the Comptroller’s remit and which was directly related to the budget overruns concerned. This is clearly a different issue from any alleged failure to account for the spending of taxpayers’ money. The publication did not offer to correct or clarify the matter, but offered the complainant the opportunity to do so. In these circumstances, the Press Ombudsman decided that the significance of the inaccuracy complained of required the publication of a correction or clarification by the publication on its own authority.   The complaint under Principle 1 is therefore upheld.  

There was insufficient evidence to uphold complaints about the article under Principles 2 (Distinguishing Fact and Comment) and 3 (Fairness and Honesty) of the Code of Practice.

9 April 2014