Advisers failed to read legal opinion on nursing charges
Special advisor Christy Mannion and policy adviser Deirdre Gillane also acknowledged their culpability in failing to inform Mr Martin after they had become aware of the issue.
Ms Gillane said they accepted the finding of the Travers Report that “the special advisers to the minister might have been expected to be more active in examining and probing the underlying issues.”
The likelihood that the nursing home charges were illegal was raised in a legal opinion obtained by the South Eastern Health Board which was listed for brief mention at a meeting of health board CEOs and senior Department of Health officials at Dublin’s Gresham Hotel on December 16, 2003.
Both advisers received an eight-page summary of the opinion the night before the meeting, but failed to read it.
Asked at a hearing of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children yesterday if it was “exceptional” that they would not read such a key document, Mr Mannion replied: “It was.”
With hindsight, he should have read it, he said. He only finally viewed the opinion in recent months, after the illegal charges became public knowledge following Tánaiste Mary Harney’s intervention.
The opinion was discussed for approximately 10 minutes at the December 2003 meeting, which lasted three and a half hours in total, Mr Mannion said.
Mr Martin missed those 10 minutes, and neither Mr Mannion nor Ms Gillane subsequently briefed him on it.
The committee will continue its hearings on the illegal charges, which were levied on more than 300,000 people between 1976 and 2004 and could cost the State up to €2 billion to refund, next week.
