The Health Service Executive has been criticised in an unpublished internal audit report about how it procured millions of euro worth of ventilators at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak.
The report found there was unsatisfactory governance, documentation and risk management in the procurement of the ventilators, for which the HSE pre-paid vendors more than €80 million.
The HSE's own auditors gave the executive worst-possible rating they could in the report, which has been obtained by RTÉ's Morning Ireland under a Freedom of Information request.
The HSE said it accepted the recommendations of the audit. The report noted the ventilators were prepaid and sourced from 10 suppliers who were previously unknown to the executive.