Department of Health first approached Trinity over Holohan appointment

The Department of Health is understood to have first approached Trinity College Dublin over a potential role for Dr Tony Holohan at the university in recent months.

Dr Holohan was announced as the professor of public health strategy and leadership at Trinity on March 25th, a role which will involve learning the lessons of Covid and preparing for future health challenges.

The appointment sparked controversy this week when it emerged in recent days that the Department of Health would fund the role and continue to pay Dr Holohan’s annual salary of €187,000.

While the Department of Health is understood to have first approached the university about a potential appointment, senior university figures are understood to have been keen to secure his expertise.

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The university said the processes that facilitated the appointment were “neither unique nor unusual”.

"It is feature of academia, in Ireland and globally, that some professorships are paid for by external funding bodies, others are paid for by private enterprise or philanthropic donations," the university said, in a statement.

“This appointment followed our regular procedures. The university is completely satisfied that the professorship will deliver timely and relevant teaching and research opportunities and that Dr Holohan is ideally placed to make a significant contribution.”

Prof Holohan’s salary will be in excess of regular pay scales for academic professors at the university, where salaries range from just over €118,000 to almost €158,000.

However, it is below that of top earners in higher education where top academics in key areas of research have been hired on salaries of up to €337,000.

Figures obtained by The Irish Times in 2018 showed there were more than 70 staff on salaries in excess of €200,000 across higher education.

They include researchers and academic medical consultants, whose salaries are paid for by the HSE and their affiliated higher-education institutions.

’Not satisfied’

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said it would have been “far preferable” if the full details of Dr Holohan’s secondment to Trinity had been put in the public domain at the outset.

Asked about the matter in the Dáil on Thursday, Mr Varadkar said the Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath was “not satisfied with how this has been done” and was engaging with the Department of Health.

The Irish Times reported on Thursday that Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly was only made aware that Dr Holohan’s new position at TCD was a secondment from the Department of Health on Tuesday.

Dr Tony Holohan confirmed on Thursday that he does not intend to return to the role of chief medical officer at any point in the future after taking up a new position at Trinity.

In a statement on Thursday, he said his secondment to Trinity meant that he had agreed to relinquish is role as chief medical officer.

“It is not my intention to return to this role at any point in the future. It is important that my successor feels fully empowered and enabled to undertake the role as they see fit,” he said.

He said the Department intended him to lead the development and activities of inter-institutional collaboration between universities and the health sector and to develop stronger links with the WHO and agencies of the EU.

Dr Holohan will not be attached to a single school or area of expertise. Instead, his role will cross the faculties of arts, humanities and social sciences, as well as health sciences, recognising the complexity of modern health challenges.

Trinity provost Prof Linda Doyle said at the time of his announcement of his position last month that the university was excited that he would be working with other academics to learn the lessons of Covid and prepare for these future challenges.