Beaumont Hospital writes off €194,654 in overpayments made to 20 staff
Gordon Deegan
The Beaumont Hospital Board last year wrote off overpayments of €194,654 to 20 staff for payments made between 2015 to 2021 as the payments were deemed uncollectible.
The overpayment write-off made last year is disclosed by Beaumont Hospital Board chairperson, Pauline Philip, who also reveals that at the end of 2024, overpayments to staff identified as due for recovery amounted to €704,000.
In the Beaumont Hospital Board 2024 annual financial statement, Philip also states that during 2024, private health insurance claims to the value of €413,347 were deemed uncollectible, which she said equates to 1.8pc of the 2024 private patient income.
Philip further discloses that the Dublin hospital was in May 2025 the victim of a successful phishing scam perpetrated through fraudulent email addresses and invoices, and the fraud amounted to €39,624.
Philip stated that there was a second attempt, which was identified before it was successful.
She said that the hospital immediately froze the vendor for future payments and contacted both the hospital’s bank and An Garda Siochána, providing on-site fraud awareness training with staff in addition to internal cyber awareness training and phishing tests.
The financial statements show that 55 employees earned over €300,000 in 2024 compared to 11 under that heading in 2023.
Two employees earned over €400,000 in 2024 including one who earned between €420,000 and €429,000. The overall staff costs bill came to €391 million in 2024 where numbers employed increased to 4,546.
The costs of running Beaumont Hospital in 2024 increased by 13 per cent from €659.4 million to €745.9 milion.
The financial statements disclose that the board made a legal settlement of €585,000 in 2024.
The financial statements also disclose that the Beaumont Hospital Board has paid out €1.5 million for radiology services and awarded one contract without competitive tender to a company where 20 staff members were directors of the firm.
The payout and contract award is highlighted by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Seamus McCarthy is his own report attached to the Beaumont Hospital Board annual financial statements for 2024, which also provides details on the payout and contract award.
In his report, McCarthy stated that in 2024, the Beaumont Hospital Board paid the €1.5m to the company and directly awarded one contract to this company without competitive procurement.
McCarthy stated that the hospital has stated that 20 members of staff were directors of the supplier company and that each of the staff members concerned had been notified by the hospital in relation to their obligations to complete a statement of interest for the year 2024.
McCarthy stated that “it discloses that 16 of the staff holding directorships had submitted statements of interest for 2024 and that only four of these had made disclosures regarding the company”.
Under the heading of ‘Conflict of interest and procurement of contracts’, chairperson of the Beaumont Hospital Board, Pauline Philip makes reference to the payments of €1.5m.
Philip said that the €1.5m was paid to the firm on an outsourced and insourced provision. She commented that “these patient treatment models are valid access initiatives which have come under scrutiny at national level due to perceived or real conflict of interest risk”.
Philip states that two contracts are in place with the provider - one which expired in January 2024 where the hospital applied for a derogation on the basis of clinical necessity to accommodate patient requirements locally.
Philip states that the second contract was awarded without competitive tender and “when this was realised by the hospital in 2025, the hospital began an open tender to address these non-compliant procurement issues”.
Of the 16 employees who responded to the hospital’s request to declare conflict of interest, only four confirmed that they were directors of the company.
Philip stated that the hospital has identified shortcomings in its processes for collecting ‘conflicts of interest’ declarations and for their monitoring and escalation where necessary.
Philip states that “a project to address the identified shortcomings is in hand and expected to conclude shortly. The Hospital will ensure recommendations are implemented”.
