Robert Watt and Tony Holohan to go before health committee next week

Senior health officials will go before the Oireachtas health committee while a second committee simultaeously seeks to force a Dáil vote to compel them to appear amid a deepening political row over the issue.

The top civil servant in the Department of Health, Robert Watt, and the chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan will go to the health committee next Wednesday to discuss the latter’s cancelled appointment to a seconded position in Trinity College Dublin.

Meanwhile, following a move by Sinn Fein members of the finance committee, it will seek new powers to compel Mr Watt to attend, after he indicated that he will not attend the finance committee - a position laid out in a letter he sent to the committee chair on Tuesday evening.

“I have answered questions on these matters at the health committee and I do not believe it is reasonable for me to be asked to attend a different sectoral Committee to answer questions on the same issue”.

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“I’m sure you would agree this is neither in the public interest, nor is it an efficient use of members or public servants’ time,” he wrote.

However, speaking on Wednesday morning, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said there was “no question” of not appearing before a committee - “or committees” - once an external report was completed. He said this would also apply to Mr Watt, and had raised the prospect of a joint session. “Normally what happens when multple committess look for witnesses to come in, regularly those committees will talk to each other... sometimes joint sessions are held, we can look at what works,” he said.

Earlier this week, his spokesman said he would be happy to engage with “an Oireachtas committee” once the review was complete.

As the issue played out across the day on Wednesday, a private meeting of the finance committee on Wednesday morning, Sinn Féin’s finance and public expenditure spokespersons sought powers to compel witnesses.

The finance committee agreed to write to the committee on parliamentary privileges and oversight seeking the power to send persons and records. It has to be agreed by the Dáil and Seanad, which could prove politically uncomfortable for the Government. The complex and bitter row is leading to deepening frustration on all sides, with one figure describing it on Wednesday evening as “farcical”.

Scrutinising role

In a letter sent by Pearse Doherty and Mairead Farrell to Mr McGuinness, they wrote said the “time has now come for this committee to reassert itself, to reclaim the vital scrutinising role it was given, and its responsibility for bringing accountability among senior positions in the public service”.

The political row over the appearance showed no sign of abating on Wednesday, with Mr McGuinness saying the Taoiseach had put a “misleading commentary” before the Dáil when he said there was an element of a witch hunt to how the issue was being pursued.

He said there had been a “determined effort by Government” to cloud the issues surrounding the appointment using smoke and mirrors, obfuscation and spin, and that his job as chair of the committee is being made “seriously difficult” by Government ministers, the Taoiseach and senior civil servants.

The committee heard testimony on the appointment from Martin Fraser, the secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach. Mr Fraser told the committee that he first discussed the potential move by Dr Holohan to the university sector at a meeting in August of 2021, at which point it was a “far more generic proposal” than that which eventually proved so controversial.