THE FORMER head of the State’s national cancer control programme, Prof Tom Keane, was no longer interested in the position of chief executive officer of the HSE for “personal and family reasons”, Minister for Health Mary Harney said yesterday.
Questioned about his decision last week to withdraw his name from the recruitment competition to find a successor for Prof Brendan Drumm, who leaves in August, Ms Harney told the Oireachtas Health Committee that she had not spoken to Prof Keane since he made his decision but she understood he made it for personal and family reasons.
Highly placed sources claimed last week that Prof Keane had withdrawn after he unsuccessfully sought certain assurances from the HSE board before he would take up the job.
These included guaranteed budgets as well as an exemption from the Government’s moratorium on recruitment to some services.
He was also said to have put forward certain views of how some HSE services were run and how he wanted to change them, but his views were not shared by some HSE board members.
Ms Harney said the appointment of a new chief executive was a matter for the HSE board. She added that it would not be appropriate for her to comment on who Prof Drumm’s successor might be.
However, she has indicated in the past that she would like to see Prof Keane stay in Ireland, given the success he has had with reorganising cancer services.