Robert Watt and his role in Tony Holohan’s €20m secondment

It is not the contents of the 12-page briefing note by Robert Watt on Dr Tony Holohan’s secondment that will pose the biggest problem for the secretary general of the Department of Health.

It’s the letter he sent to Prof Linda Doyle, the provost of Trinity College Dublin in early March.

In his note, Watt devotes a fair chunk of space to his argument that there was “nothing unusual” about Holohan’s now abandoned secondment.

But the letter to TCD points to this being a very unusual secondment indeed.

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For one, it would be a de facto permanent move that would bring the former chief medical officer to retirement age. The department, rather than TCD, would also foot the annual salary of €187,000 per annum. In addition, Holohan would also be allowed to undertake paid work in the private sector, which he would not have done as chief medical officer.

All of those things pointed to philanthropy rather than common or garden secondment.

What made it a truly extraordinary secondment was Watt’s additional offer on behalf of the Department of Health: to make an “annual ring-fenced allocation of €2 million for the duration of the secondment to be administered through the Health Research Board”.

Holohan is now 56 so if he had been to continue in TCD to retirement age, the overall value of that offer would be about €20 million. It had become not just a simple secondment for one individual – it was now a secondment that involved millions of euro of State funding.

Beyond authority?

The €20 million guarantee from Watt will be at the heart of the independent review ordered by Taoiseach Micheál Martin which begins next week, as well as examinations of the matter by two separate Oireachtas committees, for public expenditure and for health.

But did Watt have the authority to make that generous offer on behalf of his department and the State?

He has argued that he derived that authority from a memorandum to the Government to set up a public health reform steering group. It stated: “As an immediate first step, we will examine international public health models, learn from best practice and reshape our public health system to ensure an agile and well- planned response to future epidemics.”

Watt argued that this memorandum gave his department “the policy imperative to progress the matter”.

Some would quibble it would be a leap to translate this very general aspiration in a memorandum into giving Holohan a professorship in TCD and guaranteeing a spend of up to €20 million for research.

In fairness, there would be public benefit to it, including collaboration with other universities, the EU and the Who Health Organisation to prepare better for future pandemics. The reality, though, was that the Department of Health would have no ownership of the fruits of the research, even though it could have a wider societal benefit.

That said, senior government sources have expressed the view that it was a good idea but compromised by a lack of consultation by senior Department of Health officials.

HRB in dark

There are some other aspects of the offer that also stick out like a sore thumb. Watt told TCD’s Doyle the €2 million per annum funding would be administered through the Health Research Board (HRB). Since the controversy came to light, the HRB has said several times it knew nothing about this arrangement.

“The HRB wishes to clarify that it was not involved in any discussion around this post and has received no correspondence from either the Department of Health or Trinity College in relation to funding the CMO secondment,” it said this week.

The board also pointed out that it does not give out funding willy nilly.

“To fill strategic gaps, the HRB occasionally runs open, competitive funding calls where Higher Education Authorities can nominate individuals for research leader awards. These awards are advertised and applications are assessed by an international panel using a robust and transparent process.”

Watt himself addresses these issues in the briefing note: “It was not explicitly stated but it was envisaged that this would involve competitive funding organised appropriately. The letter of intent therefore provided for Dr Holohan’s salary to be paid as part of a wider fund which it was envisaged could be administered by the Health Research Board, with details to be agreed between all three parties. It was never envisaged that this salary would be paid directly on the vote of the Department of Health.”

This will need some explaining. He refers to “competitive” funding, but if the €2 million per annum had already been guaranteed, would that not mean the “competitive” element would be moot?

Not only was the HRB not aware of this arrangement, but other departments and Ministers, including Stephen Donnelly, were oblivious too.

Why was Donnelly not informed of the secondment?

Price tag

Watt argues there was “nothing unusual” about the arrangement and there was no change in the chief medical officer’s condition of employment. Therefore, he says, there was no need to inform the Minister.

However, the letter to TCD referred to him taking on private remunerated work, which some might argue was a change in his conditions. One would also expect the Minister to be entitled to know that there was also a €20 million price tag on the secondment.

Were the Taoiseach and other members of the Government kept in the dark? Watt says the secretary to government, Martin Fraser, was aware of the secondment (but not the details), which indeed he was. But the fact that Holohan was not actually retiring from public service, but was instead staying on the payroll of the department for the next decade, never filtered up to senior Ministers or to the Taoiseach.

“Elements of this were not communicated well and there are learnings for the Department of Health in this respect,” remarked Watt in one of the few concessions to shortcomings in his briefing note, which has a distinctive unapologetic tone to it.

It’s clear that Holohan wanted the job and did the running with universities, specifically TCD. The matter was first raised in August but the real discussions began in earnest only in February.

The announcement was made within a month.

It begs the question – why the unseemly haste? Why did the department commit so quickly to all of these things and rush to get it all done without going through the normal processes? These questions remain to be answered.

Perhaps all will become clear following the independent review. Perhaps not.