ROBERT WATT IS set to tell TDs and Senators of his “regret” that Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan will not be taking up a proposed professor role at Trinity College Dublin.
The Secretary General of the Department of Health is set to attend the Oireachtas Health Committee tomorrow and will be joined by Holohan.
Watt will tell the committee that funding for the professorship was “to be worked out” when the proposal for Holohan’s secondment was sent to Trinity.
The committee is seeking answers over the proposed secondment of Holohan to a role at Trinity that was abandoned due to controversy over the proposed salary and how it was to be funded.
The proposed role, announced in March, was intended to be a newly created position of Professor of Public Health Strategy and Leadership.
In his opening statement tomorrow, Watt will tell the committee that he first held discussions with Holohan about his future plans in August 2021 and that a number of subsequent engagements focused on “future pandemic preparedness… policy making and the role of public communications”.
Watt will tell politicians that Holohan had raised the potential involvement of third-level institutions and that on 25 February the CMO “requested my support to progress a secondment to a Dublin University”.
“In early March, the Secretary to the government spoke to me and I confirmed that I was working on the details of this arrangement, including the proposed research funding element. I was aware that the Government had recently endorsed particular secondment arrangements to the university sector for senior civil servants,” Watt will say.
Given his long and distinguished service, and the crucial knowledge and ability he brought to bear in the pandemic, I felt it was equally important that Dr Holohan’s expertise be retained and utilised in the public sector.
Watt said said that a letter of intent to Trinity was issued on 16 March but that the department considered that funding “was something that needed to be worked out”.
The controversy over the secondment arose when the Department of Health said it would continue to pay Holohan’s salary during the secondment, which is reported to be around €187,000 per year.
Officials have subsequently said the salary would largely have been paid for from competitive research funding but the growing controversy caused Holohan to decide against taking up the position.
Watt will say that “it is a matter of regret” that the “important and innovative proposal” is not going ahead.
Despite Watt’s appearance before the Oireachtas Health Committee, the Oireachtas Finance Committee has said it may seek powers to compel him to appear before it.
The Oireachtas Health Committee meets at 9.30am tomorrow.
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