HSE’s top HR chief set to take up role at UCC

A top HSE official, head of human resources Barry O’Brien, is to leave the organisation in the coming months, it was confirmed last night.

Mr O’Brien, a regular attendee at the Oireachtas health committee and a key negotiator in the Haddington Road talks, is understood to be taking up a role in the HR department of University College Cork.

He was one of a number of health service officials who travelled to the US on trips funded by the Siptu so-called slush fund which is being scrutinised by the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The committee is to hold further hearings on the scandal on November 27, and has indicated it wants to hear from Department of Health and HSE employees.

The Independent TD, Shane Ross, said last weekend that the committee should interview Mr O’Brien as part of its inquiries into Siptu’s Health and Local Authority Levy Fund, which came to light in 2009 but had been operating since 1998.

The Comptroller and Auditor General has said the net cost of the fund to taxpayers was €3.15m, with €2.2m spent on training initiatives.

TDs have branded the Siptu bank account a “slush fund” where trade union officials and senior public and civil servants “cosied up” to one other.

Many of the visits to places like the US and Canada for training and development occurred around St Patrick’s Day.

The HSE has previously argued that Mr O’Brien was invited by Siptu to travel twice, and on both occasions took annual leave and claimed no subsistence or expenses. He was in a less senior role in the HSE when the travel took place.