A north Dublin home care provider has sought to reassure its clients and staff that it is now on a secure financial footing and that serious financial issues that emerged in 2012 have been dealt with.

irishhealth.com reported last week that pay and other financial irregularities in the running of Fingal Home Care were discovered in a HSE audit of the company, which admitted in its accounts that it suffered a 'breakdown of financial controls', that manifested themselves during 2011 and 2012.

The HSE's audit, carried out in 2012, found that the company, which is in receipt of substantial State funding, discovered 'siginificant issues' in relation to the remuneration package of Fingal Home Care's then manager, in addition to issues relating to taxation, credit card transactions and procurement.

The company, in a statement following media reports about the issue, says its voluntary directors took over the running of the company in September 2012 after identifying serious financial issues. Fingal Home Care says it is now in a secure position to provide services and is looking forward to a secure future.

The company says the financial issues, which were raised in 2012, posed a serious risk to the company, and are now the subject of an ongoing Garda investigation.

It says in the years preceding the discovery of the financial issues, the company made monthly financial returns, including all pay and non-pay expenditure, to the HSE, and this information was also presented to the company board.

Fingal Home Care says it also held management meetings which included representatives of the HSE and voluntary directors, at which finance was a standing agenda item.

"Fifteen such integrated management meetings were held in 2009, 2010 and 2011. The reports presented and discussed at these meetings had not signalled irregularities."

Fingal Home Care said the discovery of the irregularities led to an audit, followed by an independent probe by PWC consultants.  The findings of these reports were immediately brought to the attention of the Gardai, it added.

The company says it has since been through a major restructuring that is now complete and has now returned to a trading profit.

It said it now had best practice financial controls in place along with an external financial controller.

Fingal Home Care also says it has implemented significant cost savings, 'giving greater value to the HSE'.

Staff at the organisation have accepted significant pay cuts as part of the restructuring.

Financial control issues at the homecare firm included a remuneration level for its the manager that was twice the recommended HSE pay level for this position, including an unvouched and untaxed travel allowance and a performance-related bonus in breach of HSE guidelines.

Anomalies were also found with credit card transactions.

The financial issues at Fingal Home Care were also highlighted on RTE's Prime Time Programme last week.

Finance control issues at homecare firm