Coalition TDs circle wagons to protect Martin

GOVERNMENT members on the Oireachtas Health Committee were accused of excluding crucial issues in a report on illegal nursing home charges to protect former Health Minister Micheál Martin from being criticised.

On the eve of publication of a committee report into the charges scandal, Fine Gael and Labour health spokespersons yesterday published 12 recommendations which Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats committee members voted to exclude from the final report.

The committee is due to publish its report into the €1 billion scandal today, after 16 hearings over the last two months heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, including Micheál Martin and former Department of Health secretary general Michael Kelly.

The disputed opposition findings relate mostly to the failure of Mr Martin, his junior ministers and advisers, to accept any responsibility for the affair.

In a joint press conference yesterday, Fine Gael’s Liam Twomey and Labour’s Liz McManus accused their Government committee colleagues of rejecting “reasonable conclusions” as they circled the wagons to protect Mr Martin.

Ms McManus said the committee’s lengthy investigation had been effectively nullified “as a result of a decision by Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats to railroad a sanitised report through” without acceding to opposition requests to include an appendix of submissions and documents received by the committee.

Mr Twomey said it was clear the committee was intent on clearing Mr Martin of any responsibility for the nursing home charges scandal.

“Two votes were taken and it was clear that the Government majority intended to ride roughshod over any opposition attempts to assign political responsibility for the failure to deal with the illegal charges. We were also denied the facility of a minority report,” he said.

The joint Fine Gael/Labour protest, which was immediately dismissed as “playacting” by Mr Martin, led the committee’s Fianna Fáil chairman John Moloney to accuse the opposition of trying to “derail the work of their own committee”.

“I can certainly say that there was never any thought in my mind as chairperson, or indeed my colleagues, to give coverage to the minister.”

Mr Martin also accused the opposition deputies of compromising the objectivity of the Oireachtas committee and added that the two parties had always been intent on condemning him.

As with the initial Travers report into the charges scandal, the disputed health committee’s report to be published today will stop short of criticising politicians and instead recommend that the role of special advisers and their relationships with ministers be clarified.