Robert Watt rejects ‘most’ of Holohan report findings and reveals laptop ‘hack’

The secretary general at the Department of Health, Robert Watt, has strongly rejected “most” of the findings of a report into the abandoned secondment of former chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan, also telling an Oireachtas committee that an attempt to brief Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly on the details of the proposal had failed because the Minister’s laptop had been “hacked”.

Speaking at the Oireachtas finance committee hearing on Wednesday, Mr Watt said he rejected “most of the findings of the report”.

On Tuesday, Tánaiste Micheál Martin backed the report, which was published this week, saying it “cannot be questioned, it’s conclusive”.

Mr Watt, who was a key participant in the proposed secondment process, said he rejected a conclusion in the report that Dr Holohan should not have been as involved as he had been in aspects of the arrangement which would have seen him take up a public-health professorship in Trinity College Dublin (TCD).

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[ Miriam Lord: A jaw-dropping performance from the prince of permanent government ]

Mr Watt staunchly defended the secondment process, acknowledging briefly some communications shortcomings but rejecting the characterisation of the process in the report, the report’s findings and TDs’ descriptions of the secondment process as a “very casual arrangement”.

Mr Watt also disclosed that Mr Donnelly had known of the plan “in generality” and there had been an attempt to send a more detailed note to the Minister while he was in the United States but his computer had been “hacked” and that subsequently it had “slipped our mind”.

[ Robert Watt undergoes committee grilling but what did we learn? ]

[ Holohan raised issues about report into TCD post during drafting stage ]

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

Mr Watt also argued that the €2 million to be associated with the proposal would have been disbursed beyond TCD, rather than to the university itself.

He argued the letter of intent had not constituted an agreement but an intention to allocate funding through the Health Research Board after a competitive process. At the committee hearing this led to heated disagreements between Mr Watt and Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty over the meaning of the letter. Mr Doherty said the letter stated in “black and white” that the funding would go to TCD.

Asked if he agreed with the report’s verdict on the structure of the process, Mr Watt said: “No, I don’t agree with it.”

Asked about the finding that the funding had “bypassed all accepted protocols”, he said he did not accept that.

The report also outlined the strong rejection of a contention by Mr Watt that the Tánaiste’s chief of staff, Deirdre Gillane, had known about the details of the proposal. In the body of an email published alongside the main report, Ms Gillane strongly rejected this contention. At the committee hearing on Wednesday, Mr Watt said he accepted the substance of what Ms Gillane had said about what she had known and when she knew it.

Mr Donnelly earlier sided with Ms Gillane over Mr Watt in a dispute over the botched secondment.

Mr Donnelly said it was clear Ms Gillane’s account, as set out in the report on the controversy, was correct.

Ms Gillane had not had the details on the planned secondment of Dr Holohan to TCD until the time she indicated in the report, Mr Donnelly told the committee.

In April 2022 Dr Holohan said he had decided not to proceed with the secondment following controversy over the salary arrangements.

Mr Watt, who was centrally involved in arranging the secondment, had claimed Ms Gillane had been informed of the details of the appointment.

However, Ms Gillane, the then chief of staff in the Department of the Taoiseach, said Mr Watt’s claims that she had been fully informed were “wholly without foundation” and described his remarks as “inaccurate and unwarranted”, according to the report.

Asked about the divergence in accounts between the two officials, Mr Donnelly said he agreed with Ms Gillane’s account. There may have been a “misunderstanding in testimony” as to when Ms Gillane had been informed of the secondment, he suggested, but it was clear this had taken place “late in the day”.

He said he did not intend to take any action, pointing out that Mr Watt was appearing before the finance committee and he, the Minister, was appearing before the health committee. “That’s a very substantial amount of accountability based on a secondment that never happened,” he said.

Everyone involved had acted “in good faith”, he told Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane.