Beaumont hospital paid a radiology firm €6.2 million over six years without following any formal procurement process, TDs have heard.
The hospital’s CEO Anne Coyle has today apologised to the Public Accounts Committee after failures in governance were uncovered in its 2024 accounts.
Under questioning from Fine Gael TD James Geoghegan, Beamont CEO Anne Coyle said that, between 2019 and 2025, a total of €6.2 million was paid to this firm for providing CT scans, ultrasound and mammography services. None of the work was put out to tender as part of a public procurement process.
While €181,676 was paid to the firm in 2019, this cost rose sharply in following years. In 2025 the company received €1.1 million from the hospital for this work.
“The contract was originally awarded without competition to the radiology practice in 2019, based on a derogation due in part to patient need and demand,” she said.
“And it was understood that that derogation applied when the contract was rolled over.”
The Comptroller and Auditor General previously revealed that of the 20 directors of the firm who also worked in Beaumont, just four made declarations of interest in relation to the enterprise.
This morning Ms Coyle told the Committee that radiology services went through a public procurement process last month, and the firm in question was chosen to continue this work as part of ‘a number of providers in an overall framework agreement’.
Earlier Ms Coyle apologised unreservedly to the Committee for failures in financial controls. She said that the hospital notified the 2024 issues to the Comptroller and Auditor General during their 2025 audit.
“I assure the committee that the board and the executive team of Beaumont Hospital are deeply committed to ensuring the hospital is managed responsibly and transparently,” she added.
“We recognise the trust placed in us to use public and donated funds prudently, and this responsibility guides every decision we make.”
The audit of 2024 accounts found that the hospital spent a total of €17.9 million on ‘non-compliant procurement’ that year.
An October 2025 PAC meeting also heard how the hospital had to return €25,000 to the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) after an error was made in billing for insourcing work.
The hospital was also then quizzed on significant overspend on an IT system (Project Coral) that was eventually rolled out in 2024 at an overall cost of €4.8 million – more than double the projected cost of €2 million.
The issue of how voluntary hospitals manage their funding has repeatedly come up in the Committee in recent months.
Original source: ie