Uncivil war among top officials on botched Holohan appointment to Trinity College Dublin

There are glaring disagreements among some of the most senior officials in Government about how a now-abandoned appointment to Trinity College Dublin for Dr Tony Holohan was handled last year, according to a long-delayed report published by the Department of Health on Monday.

The report details directly contradictory accounts of what happened this time last year, when the appointment for Dr Holohan – who led the State’s public health response to Covid 19 – was being planned. The secondment to Trinity was abandoned after political controversy, and Dr Holohan retired from public service.

Monday’s report is likely to reignite the controversy. It shows that the top official in the Department of Health Robert Watt insisted to the inquiry that he had shared “all the critical details” with the secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach Martin Fraser, and that the Taoiseach’s chief of staff Deirdre Gillane had also been informed about the planned appointment.

But both Mr Fraser and Ms Gillane strongly disputed Mr Watt’s account.

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‘The assertions made by the secretary general of the Department of Health as outlined in your email are, in terms, grossly inaccurate and unwarranted’

—  Deirdre Gillane wrote in her submission

Ms Gillane’s submission to the inquiry is extremely strongly worded in her rejection of Mr Watt’s account of events.

“I want to be absolutely clear,” she wrote. “The assertions made by the secretary general of the Department of Health as outlined in your email are, in terms, grossly inaccurate and unwarranted. The comments suggest, without any justification, that particular conclusions should be drawn about my knowledge of the proposed secondment of the CMO.

“While he does not explicitly acknowledge it, the secretary general to the Department of Health [Mr Watt] never spoke directly to me about any aspect of the proposed secondment in the relevant time period, and it is impossible to understand how he can make the broad assertions that he does.”

Ms Gillane went on to dispute Mr Watt’s assertion that she knew about the nature of Dr Holohan’s proposed appointment in a number of respects. She also said: “I also wish to address the fatuous reference by the secretary general of the Department of Health to An Taoiseach being my ‘principal’. I am the chief of staff at the Department of the Taoiseach. For the avoidance of any doubt and contrary to what is clearly insinuated, I did not, and could never have, informed the Taoiseach of matters of which I was unaware.

“I hope this clarifies the matter. As you can appreciate I am deeply concerned about the circulation or publication of any report containing the comments of the secretary general of the Department of Health, in so far as they concern me, where such comments are wholly without foundation.”

[ Tony Holohan should not have been involved in aspects of TCD move, report finds ]

Mr Fraser, previously the State’s top civil servant as secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach and now ambassador to London, accepted that he knew about the “main elements” of the proposed appointment months before it became public. However, he says that was “not aware of the details of the processes for allocation of health research funding, or of the potential sources of such funding.

“I had no involvement in the internal Department of Health discussions, correspondence, discussions with TCD, decisions, approvals or implementation measures relating to either the secondment or the allocation of research funding,” he told the inquiry. “I also had no sight of any of the relevant official documentation. I was therefore not aware of all the details regarding the secondment and research funding as they were dealt with the Department of Health.”

But an email from Dr Holohan to Mr Fraser in February of last year contains proposals from Dr Holohan about the role, and a suggestion that the budget should be €1 million a year.

Mr Watt told the inquiry: “Based on the facts it is not accurate to suggest that Government or key players were not told. Principal advisers to the Head of Government were told. I was subsequently instructed to finalise the arrangements to give effect to this”.

But Mr Fraser contests the assertion by Mr Watt that he (Mr Watt) had been “instructed” to implement the details and finalise the arrangements for the appointment.

Asked about Mr Watt’s statement, he replied: “No. Indeed, I had no authority to give an instruction to the secretary general of another Government Department in respect of human resource and financial issues which are clearly his/her responsibility.”

[ The Irish Times view: now for the blame game ]

The correspondence published as part of the report also shows that Mr Watt earlier sought to have parts of the first draft of the report removed. “All the findings and conclusions regarding people/Government not being informed should be removed from your report. They are assertions based on factual inaccuracies and incorrect interpretations and they have no basis”.

In her conclusions, the report’s author Dr Maura Quinn was critical of the proposed funding mechanism for the proposal, which was to have amounted to some €2 million a year, saying they did not “meet accepted norms of scrutiny, transparency and accountability.”

She also said that having Dr Holohan involved in the discussions about funding could cause a potential conflict of interest.

“I am of the view that the Chief Medical Officer should not have been exclusively personally involved in the negotiation of potential university partners nor should any possible research funding have been linked to his possible secondment to a university.

“There should have been a complete decoupling of a proposed secondment for the Chief Medical Officer, to a university and any research funding discussions. These are separate matters and should not have been combined.”

The report is also strongly critical of the way in which the funding for the research to be overseen by Dr Holohan was arranged, saying it “by-passed all of the accepted protocols for research funding and was linked atypically to one named individual.”

But it is the blame game among senior officials once the wheels came off the proposal last year that is likely to attract the most attention. It shows just how relationships at the top of Government were poisoned by the controversy, which is still the subject of some unhappiness in Government circles.

Meanwhile, when asked about the report on RTÉ Radio’s drivetime, Fianna Fáil spokesman on justice Jim O’Callaghan said the report “doesn’t reflect well on the process by which Dr Holohan was sought to be seconded to Trinity College.

“It was sloppy, and it was too informal, and I don’t in any way support it. I think it is an example of how governance shouldn’t take place. But ultimately the proposed secondment didn’t occur.

“I don’t think anyone disputes Dr Holohan would be a suitable person to occupy the position of Professor of Public Health, but the correct procedures weren’t followed and, because of that, the secondment came under public scrutiny and was found to be inadequate.”