Union reaction: Serious issues concerning the relationship between ministers and civil servants are raised in the Travers report, a union leader said last night.
Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants general secretary Seán Ó Riordáin said the union would study the report in detail before reacting to it.
He felt it was important to point out, however, that the issue of the legality of nursing home charges had been in both "the public and political domain" since 1976 when there had been a Supreme Court decision. There had also been several reports over the years by the ombudsman, including a special report on the issue in 2001, so "it was no secret" that there were issues to be dealt with.
He said that the nature of inquiries was that they looked into the written record. "But what's on the file is never the complete story and everybody would recognise that. Just because it's not on the file doesn't mean it didn't happen."
The Travers report, he said, also raised fundamental issues in relation to the future of the relationship between civil servants and the Government. Mr Travers had said that civil servants should not assume that telling something to a ministerial adviser was the same as telling it to the minister.
However, in the Department of Health arrangements had been in place for some time in which advisers were appointed by ministers to deal with significant issues, Mr Ó Riordáin said.
Asked if the union was concerned that officials might be scapegoated as a result of the report, he said throughout the Civil Service and the political domain there would be fears that individuals might be scapegoated. He wanted to consider the report in detail before coming to any conclusions.
