Senior civil servants setting out their opinions on issues is not helpful to the Government as such views are of “no relevance”, Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan has said.
Speaking on Thursday after Department of Health secretary general Robert Watt appeared before the Oireachtas finance committee over the botched secondment of former chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan to a role in Trinity College Dublin, Mr O’Callaghan said he believed Mr Watt should have accepted the findings of a review into the debacle.
The report, by independent director Maura Quinn, was critical of aspects of the proposed appointment, which was abandoned last year following political controversy. It was proposed to move Dr Holohan to the academic position with a research budget of €2 million a year.
Mr Watt sought to draw a line under the controversy at Wednesday’s hearing but committee members said what was stated had left things more “muddled”. He defended the process around to the planned post for Dr Holohan and said an effort to inform Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly about it fell foul due to a “hack” of the Minister’s laptop.
Committee chairman John McGuinness said members would compare Mr Watt’s evidence with that supplied by others about the secondment plan and it would consider holding more sessions and producing its own report.
The meeting saw tense exchanges between Mr Watt and committee members, with Mr McGuinness accusing the civil servant of being “arrogantly dismissive of the report” by Ms Quinn.
Mr O’Callaghan told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that he and other committee members would “reflect on the evidence” provided by Mr Watt. He said he personally would like to hear from Ms Quinn, who had “produced an excellent, coherent report” on the controversy.
“I sometimes think reports don’t get the attention they deserve unless the person who drafted them comes before a committee and speaks in respect to them,” he said. “Also, the findings of a report have been in effect challenged by Mr Watt because of his personal views as well. I would like to see her come there, but again, the principal issue here is how do we deal with senior civil servants?”
He said he believed the positions of Mr Watt and Mr Donnelly “are tenable” but that “the secretary general needs to recognise that he’s a servant of the Minister”.
“He’s there to implement Government policy. And the Minister, in fairness to him, should have been informed about this much earlier,” he said.
“And unfortunately, I don’t think it is helpful to the Government of the country that we are now beginning to get into the realm where secretaries general are setting out their own personal opinions. But we don’t need to know Mr Watt’s personal opinion. His personal opinion is of no relevance. He’s there to implement the policy.”
The Dublin Bay South TD added: “My opinion on what he should have said is ‘I accept the findings within the report of Maura Quin that was commissioned by the Minister for Health’. And, of course, the problem about him doing that was that if he accepted this, it means he will have to accept that the whole scheme ... did not comply with accepted norms of scrutiny and transparency and accountability. That’s what she found.”
Mr O’Callaghan said Dr Holohan was “a very fine public servant”, but he did not want to see scenarios where State-funded jobs were created for civil servants who have not reached the full retirement age. He said some people who have been “slaving in universities for years in academic disciplines” would find it “very disheartening” to see a senior role created and funded which they would be unable to apply for.
