A CLARE SENATOR has criticised the Secretary General at the Department of Health for the manner in which he handled the proposed secondment of Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan to Trinity College Dublin.
In March, it was announced that Dr Holohan’s proposed role was intended to be a newly created position of Professor of Public Health Strategy and Leadership at Trinity College Dublin. The plan was abandoned due to controversy over the proposed salary and how it would be funded.
The Department of Health had said it would continue to pay Holohan’s salary during the secondment, which is reported to be around €187,000 per year. Officials have subsequently said the salary would largely have been paid for from competitive research funding.
On Wednesday morning, members of the Oireachtas Health Committee accused the Secretary General of the Department of Health Robert Watt of ‘seriously mishandling’ the proposed secondment.
Senator Martin Conway (FG) expressed his view that the proposed role was “needed” as he wished Dr Holohan “every success”. Following questioning from the Ennistymon man, it emerged that Mr Watt did not sign off on the press release announcing Holohan’s departure from the Department and had not sought legal advice on this. “In light of what happened, there should have been more detail or else it should have been held off and done properly, a huge amount of this would have been avoided if detail of secondment put into public domain in a better manner,” he stated.
Watt agreed that with “the benefit of hindsight”, the statement should have not been released until more detail was available, “the communications could have been better”.
This prompted Conway to call for new protocols on the secondment of “top level servants”. He said Government approval had not been forthcoming when the Secretary General had committed to the €2.5m, “were it not sanctioned, were you not leaving the Department of Health exposed”. However, Watt defended the approach and clarified that Dr Holohan’s salarty “would have been a fraction of the €2.5m”.
“Small print in these things are important and language is important, we are talking about €20m plus over ten years, you clearly expressed in a letter of intent where it wasn’t explicitly stated that Government approval was required, you just presumed that Trinity would presume,” Senator Conway commented. Watt responded to say he was “very happy that the broad intent would be fine” and said the CMO’s proposed salary “wasn’t a significant amount of money in the overall context”.
Senator Conway asked Watt if he believed it was a mistake not to notify the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly (FF) of his plans sooner. “The Minister was aware of the policy context,” Watt replied. “Are you fully confident you didn’t over step remit because there was a belief you did,” the Senator answered back to which Watt said he had “nothing further to add”.
