LAST UPDATE | 17 Apr 2023
HEALTH MINISTER STEPHEN Donnelly has said there are “very clear lessons to be learnt” following the publication of a report into the secondment of former chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Tony Holohan to Trinity College Dublin.
The report concludes that he should not have been involved in aspects of the move.
Holohan had been due to take up a position with TCD on secondment. However, the proposed move collapsed after controversy emerged about how the position had come about.
The CMO then took the decision to retire from his role.
In its conclusion, the report states that the CMO should not have been exclusively personally involved in the negotiation of research funding linked to his possible secondment.
The controversy initially erupted after it was revealed that Holohan’s position would not be paid by Trinity College and he would instead continue to be paid by the Department of Health.
The Department initially said that Holohan’s new role would be an “open-ended secondment” and defended it as being in “the public interest” due to the skills he could bring to the third-level sector.
The open-ended nature of the secondment had raised questions in particular, as they are typically only a temporary transfer of an employee to another organisation.
After questions were raised by politicians and commentators over the secondment, then-Taoiseach Micheál Martin called for the appointment to be paused before Holohan confirmed he would not take up the position.
There had previously been criticism of Department of Health Secretary General, Robert Watt, over his role in the appointment, with TDs accusing him of “seriously mishandling” the proposed secondment.
Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane said that Watt had “lost the run” of himself and that he had planned to seek “retrospective approval” after committing to providing the funding.
Social Democrats TD Roisin Shortall was also critical, describing it as a “serious mishandling of this proposal”.
The independent report was initially commissioned by Donnelly to “examine learnings and recommendations that could inform future such initiatives”, after Watt had completed an internal report.
The report adds that the “absence of any consultation with the Health Research Board (HRB) from the outset, on the proposed research funding element is a deficit as is the lack of detail on the governance over the proposed funding to Trinity College Dublin”.
The report also concludes that the proposed secondment of Holohan to TCD and the associated research funding commitments should not have been linked together.
The substantial proposed funding commitment of €2 million a year until the retirement of the Chief Medical Officer, “bypassed all of the accepted protocols for research funding and was linked atypically to one named individual”, adds the report.
The commitment to Trinity College Dublin by the Department of Health of €2 million per year for research funding (to include University Departments of Public Health and others) and the subsequent declaration that it would be subject subsequently to competitive funding “is unusual and outside the regular HRB processes”, concludes the report.
It is also highlighted that there was a lack of formal consultation with the Taoiseach, Minister for Health, Government and DPER throughout the process.
In addition, the report finds that the quantum of €2 million in research funding committed to TCD is not based on any scope nor costings, but arrived at by Watt and the Chief Medical Officer as an indication of serious intent by the Department of Health.
There was no consultation with the HRB, it states.
Guidance was also not sought from DPER as to whether the Chief Medical Officer, a Deputy Secretary General, could be seconded to the university sector as per the Government decisions of 2011 and 2021, in respect of Secretaries General, finds the report.
Responding to the report, Donnelly said the report “contains a number of important observations and conclusions”.
“There are very clear lessons to be learnt by my department. The Report is clear for example that appropriate consultation and communication with relevant Ministers should inform such decisions in the future,” he added.
“The report confirms that no attempt was made to conceal the nature of the agreement with TCD in relation to the proposed secondment. Indeed, as the Report outlines, those details were put into the public domain indirectly by my department which provided material to assist with a response to a media query.”
Donnelly said he has written to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe, to request that his department examine the issues highlighted in relation to future secondments.
“There are also clear learnings for my department. I have also asked my officials to examine whether guidelines need to be drawn up to deal with the very important issue of health research funding in the future.
“I accept that all of those who became involved in this process did so with the intention of retaining for the public service the unique expertise of the former CMO, who had helped guide the public health response during the pandemic,” he said.
In a statement, Holohan welcomed the publication of the report, saying that he had previously urged Donnelly to conclude and publish it earlier.
A short statement regarding the Report published today. pic.twitter.com/R9FbuTM4jO
— Dr Tony Holohan (@DrTonyHolohan) April 17, 2023
He said that when he had sought the secondment, he had the “full knowledge and support” of the Secretaries General of the Department of Health and the Department of the Taoiseach.
“I regret that a valuable opportunity to benefit the future of Ireland’s public health has been lost, but am gratified that the Report confirms that the engagement of both universities with the process was beyond reproach.
“As the Report and documentation make clear, Trinity College had no input into, or involvement with, the level of research funding proposed and decided by the Secretary General of the Department of Health on 1 March in a meeting with myself.
“For the sake of clarity, the first time that the amount of research funding was disclosed to Trinity was, as the report states, when it was included in the final draft of the letter of intent sent on 16 March by the Secretary General to Trinity College after they had committed to lead the project.”
Holohan added that he hoped there would be learnings from the report and that this would improve “clarity and competence in any future initiatives” .
“I remain passionately committed to improvement in public health and continue to seek opportunities related to my field of expertise in Ireland and abroad.”
The report itself recommends that existing circulars and policies on secondments be reviewed and that secondments for higher-level civil servants should be scrutinised by DPER and potentially by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Additional reporting by Tadgh McNally
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