Kelly a well-respected head who had to roll

IF MICHAEL KELLY did not already know how precarious his position as secretary general of the Department of Health was before the Travers Report was completed, it would have become painfully clear by the time he got just a third of the way through the damning document.

The failures of the department to acknowledge or act upon concerns about nursing home charges over three decades were a failure that “rests primarily with the management of the department”, the report says.

As its most senior manager Kelly cannot have been surprised that his head would have to roll.