Consultants wanted €2,200 a day to compile ‘Grace’ report
Documents supplied by the HSE to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) show the controversial 2015 Resilience Ireland report ultimately cost €1,550 a day, following negotiations.
According to the documents, seen by the Irish Examiner, the details of the fee arrangement for a report into the scandal at the foster home are set out.
“At the outset, Resilience Ireland indicated a daily rate of €1,100 in respect of the two consultants engaged,” the documents state. “Following negotiation, the position settled upon was a daily rate of €900 for lead consultant and €850 for senior consultant which applied for the period Resilience Ireland was engaged during 2014.
“Thereafter, following negotiation in January 2015, a further reduction was settled upon giving daily rates reduced to €800 for lead consultant and €750 for senior consultant.”
A Government-sponsored report by Conor Dignam SC into the procurement of the report could not conclude whether the procurement process and procedure used by the HSE was adequate to ensure independence.
Meanwhile, the HSE delayed handing an internal report into the Grace foster abuse scandal to gardaí because of a legal complaint, new documents have revealed.
The HSE has been subjected to severe criticism from the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over the Grace scandal, and one of the issues it had sought answers on was the delay in handing one of two reports to gardaí in 2012.
In fresh correspondence to the PAC, the HSE has claimed the delay was because of a legal complaint from one person who was a subject of the report.
“Following completion of the Devine report in March 2012, certain legal issues arose. These issues arose at the time it had been intended to provide the report to gardaí,” the HSE letter to PAC states.
“One individual who was a subject of the report, indicated particular concerns they had with regard to the contents of the report. This individual indicated that they would take whatever legal action necessary to challenge the circulation of the report.
“Separately, another legal issue existed in the context of a number of individuals who had not taken up the invitation to contribute to the investigation and respond to circulation of extracts of the reports by Conal Devine.”
At that stage, in late June 2012, legal advice was provided to the senior staff locally that a final opportunity for a contribution should be offered.
Nine submissions were received and while Mr Devine made observations on four of these submissions, no change was made to the final report.
The provision of the report to AGS in March 2012 had to be considered within the context of these legal issues and an appropriate process put in place for the report to be handed over.
At a meeting on March 13, 2012, the senior manager dealing with the matter locally discussed it with gardaí and it was agreed that the gardaí would formally write to the HSE manager requesting a copy of the final report.
The report was delivered on July 3, 2012.
