THE GOVERNMENT last night categorically rejected a claim that it was involved in a cover-up by suppressing the number of patient cases being reviewed following concerns expressed about the work of a pathologist in Cork.
The claim was made by Labour leader Éamon Gilmore yesterday when he raised the matter of an e-mail sent by the director of communications in the Health Service Executive (HSE) to the Government press secretary last November.
The e-mail, sent on November 25th by the HSE's Joe Lennon - himself a former Government press secretary - to the current secretary Eoghan Ó Neachtáin, stated that the HSE and the Department of Health had agreed not to release figures relating to the number of patients diagnosed by Antoine Geagea, a Finnish pathologist, who was working at Cork University Hospital as a locum.
In the e-mail, released to the Irish Examiner under the FOI Act, Mr Lennon stated that the decision to suppress the figures was taken to prevent "widespread alarm in the public and unnecessary confusion in the media".
In a separate development last night, the HSE confirmed that Mr Lennon will be resigning from his position next week to take up another appointment. The HSE stressed that the decision was unrelated to the e-mail.
The comments in the e-mail led to Mr Gilmore claiming a cover-up. He said he had specifically asked Taoiseach Bertie Ahern about the e-mail twice during Leaders' Questions yesterday but Mr Ahern had refused to comment.
"It seems clear from the e-mails and the Taoiseach's refusal to answer questions about them that what was going on was a major cover-up at the highest levels in Government to prevent the public having access to information to which they are entitled," he claimed.
But that was robustly challenged last night by both the Government and the HSE. The Government press secretary pointed out that he had received the e-mail "for information purposes" only, along with a number of other managers in the HSE and Department of Health. No action was taken or initiated by Government on foot of receiving the e-mail, he said.
He also pointed out that the reference to confusion in the media was immediately followed by the comment, "as witnessed in the case of Portlaoise".
Sources close to the HSE said the strategy was decided at a senior level within the HSE and the department and were prompted by a number of things.
The first was the sense that panic had been induced by the constant stream of articles on the Portlaoise cancer misdiagnosis. Second, the decision came soon after the HSE had itself revealed at an Oireachtas committee - in what it later privately admitted was a mistake - that reviews were also being carried out of ultrasounds from Portlaoise hospital.