Department of Health has ‘no role’ in Console pay dispute

The Department of Health has washed its hands of the failure to pay three months’ wages to workers who stayed at suicide-prevention charity Console after it was hit by a financial scandal, saying it has “no role” in the dispute.

Department secretary general Jim Breslin has underlined the formal position in a letter to the Dáil’s public accounts committee despite ongoing calls for the innocent frontline workers to be given the money they are owed.

Last summer, Console was thrown into turmoil after a HSE internal audit uncovered serious financial irregularities linked directly to then chief executive Paul Kelly.

The audit, which has led to a Revenue and Garda investigation, included revelations that Mr Kelly was misspending funds on cars, holidays, designer clothes, Rugby World Cup tickets, and that his family benefited from the charity to the tune of hundreds of thousands of euro.

The scandal, which Mr Kelly attempted to prevent from becoming public by threatening to sue the HSE over its findings, led to his eventual resignation and the introduction of a receiver, with Pieta House eventually replacing the services.

As previously reported by the Irish Examiner, strict receivership and liquidation rules have resulted in a number of innocent front-line workers, who remained at the charity in order to continue providing supports to people at risk of suicide, being left without three months’ salary.

In a letter to the committee, Mr Breslin said the High Court appointed a liquidator to “officially wind up the charity” last July, and that the liquidator is solely responsible for addressing the current issue.

Mr Breslin said that “while the department is sympathetic” to what had happened, as Console “did not dissolve liabilities, neither the Department or the HSE are responsible”.

He wrote: “I cannot see a basis upon which liabilities owed by a third party to an employee could be assumed. I don’t see any role for the department in addressing this specific issue.”

In a separate letter to the committee, Console liquidator Tom Murray said the frontline workers owed money are not entitled to receive the three months’ lost pay.

Console’s former workers have said they remain “bottom of the list” despite the vital work they carried out, leaving some now struggling to pay their mortgages or rent.