The head of the HSE says the agency was powerless to investigate fundraising at Console - and it's not to blame for its collapse.

Tony O'Brien has also denied the claim from one TD that the HSE knew about the concerns regarding Console, but deliberately turned a blind eye.

It was after the agency told TDs at the Public Accounts Committee that its audit of Console for 2012-14 was partly prompted by discovering that it arguably underpaid Console for the services provided.

"We were not Console's regulator, we were not its primary funder," O'Brien said. "We were purchasing a certain range of services from Console."

Independent TD Catherine Connolly claimed that the HSE had been aware of mismanagement at the agency but chose to ignore it because it depended on the services - a claim vigorously denied by O'Brien.

It's also emerged that the Department of Health did NOT inform the HSE about the charity's former CEO Paul Kelly posing as a doctor in a Dublin hospital.

Concerns were made known to the former Minister for Health James Reilly in 2011, and Kelly was called into the Department to account for his actions - but accepted his explanation that it was simply 'a prank'.

Our political correspondent Gavan Reilly filed this report for Today FM's National Lunchtime News: