Keane withdraws application for HSE chief executive position

THE FORMER head of the State’s national cancer control programme Prof Tom Keane, who has been widely tipped to become the new chief executive of the Health Service Executive (HSE), is no longer seeking the position.

Prof Keane met members of the HSE board earlier this week for a second time regarding the chief executive position.

However, he has now told those involved in organising the process that he is withdrawing.

Highly-placed sources said that at the meeting with the board, Prof Keane put forward a number of proposals including seeking guaranteed budgets for the HSE as well as an exemption from the Government’s moratorium on some services.

Some sources said there had been no commitments given by the board. However, other sources said last night that Prof Keane had sought to develop a shared understanding of the challenges and difficulties facing the HSE but that this had not been achieved.

The HSE said the process of recruiting a chief executive to succeed Prof Brendan Drumm was continuing and that the process was confidential.

It is understood that a candidate for the job from Australia is now in the running.

Prof Keane has been the frontrunner for the post for some time and prior to Christmas he received the endorsement of Minister for Health Mary Harney.

She told reporters in December: “There’s nobody more than me would like to see Prof Keane stay in Ireland. He’s done a remarkable job, but that would be a matter for Prof Keane not for me.”

In January, Prof Keane indicated himself that he was interested in the post. He returned to Canada last month as pre-arranged after two years of leading the reorganisation of cancer services across the State.

Ms Harney told the Dáil earlier this month that a head-hunting firm, Amrop Strategis, had approached 113 potentially suitable candidates about the HSE chief executive post and subsequently met 25 of these.

She also said there were 40 responses received as a result of the advertisement placed in newspapers. She said that a shortlist of 10 candidates was then drawn up.

She said the new chief executive of the HSE would be paid a salary of €228,466 – considerably less than Prof Drumm – and that the Government had ruled out the payment of any form of bonus to the new HSE chief.Late last year, there was considerable controversy after The Irish Times revealed that Prof Drumm was to receive a bonus of €70,000 for work carried out in 2008 at a time when staff were facing a second round of pay cuts.

Coincidentally, prior to Prof Drumm being appointed five years ago, the Government’s preferred candidate for the post, Prof Aidan Halligan, also withdrew from the process at the last minute. He later said the health service was “over-managed and under-led”. “You don’t need €17 billion. You absolutely don’t . . . you need leadership,” Prof Halligan said.