The civil servant, the missing file, Micheál Martin and the €2bn bill

MICHEÁL MARTIN and Michael Kelly worked for almost five years from adjoining offices on the sixth floor of the Department of Health headquarters, yet their accounts of the illegal charging of nursing home patients over that time are world’s apart.

Yesterday, the inquiry into the €2 billion controversy blamed “systematic maladministration” extending back 28 years.

Moreover, the Travers Report found that senior officials, rather than ministers, had to bear the vast bulk of the responsibility for failing to act despite repeated warnings. Yet it also pointed to political failures.