Donnelly backs Tánaiste's chief of staff in dispute with Robert Watt on Holohan secondment

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly: 'Having spent a lot of time on this, I do believe that everyone was acting in good faith.' Picture: Gareth Chaney /Collins 

The minister for health has said he backs the Tánaiste’s chief of staff in a row regarding the former chief medical officer (CMO), but said no action needs to be taken against his own secretary-general.

Stephen Donnelly said the differing versions of events given in a newly-published report into the abandoned €2m secondment of former CMO Tony Holohan to Trinity College last year could be due to a “misunderstanding of the testimony given” by his own head of department Robert Watt.

The Quinn report into the secondment, published earlier this week, concluded Dr Holohan should have had no input into his own appointment to the role, which was eventually scrapped when it became known his €187,000 salary would be paid by the State, and not Trinity itself.

However, the report also published submissions by several of the parties with involvement in the appointment, including Mr Watt and Micheál Martin’s long-time chief of staff Deirdre Gillane, which displayed a deal of disagreement at the highest levels of Government.

Ms Gillane had described Mr Watt’s assertion she had been appraised regarding the appointment as “grossly inaccurate and unwarranted”, and described Mr Watt’s comments regarding her own role in working for the Tánaiste as “fatuous”.

Mr Donnelly, addressing the Oireachtas health committee on Wednesday morning, said the report “is very clear, and I fully agree, that the [then] taoiseach’s chief of staff did not have the details on this until when she said she did”, adding Ms Gillane’s account had been “totally correct”.

In doing so, he joined his party leader Mr Martin in backing Ms Gillane, while the Tánaiste’s partners in Government the Taoiseach and Transport Minister Eamon Ryan had both expressed confidence on Tuesday in Mr Watt.

No further action

Mr Donnelly added, however, he does not believe any further action on his behalf against Mr Watt is warranted, despite the fact his version of events has been disputed by other senior public servants.

“Having spent a lot of time on this, I do believe that everyone was acting in good faith,” Mr Donnelly said. “Everyone was trying to do the right thing.”

“It’s very important that we are all open to feedback, and always strive to improve at everything we do. We must be open to learning lessons,” he said, adding had the secondment been done properly, it would have been “valuable” to have Mr Holohan in such a public role.

However, the minister’s assertion that Mr Watt may have misunderstood the submission of Ms Gillane was dismissed by Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson David Cullinane, given Mr Watt had asked for sections of the report to be taken out “as he felt that strongly about it”.

“It’s unseemly and it can’t happen again,” Mr Cullinane said. “Established processes were not followed. We need to ensure that any future secondments are done right.”

Regarding Mr Donnelly’s assertion that no further action needs to be taken against Mr Watt, Social Democrats TD Róisín Shortall noted the terms of reference of the Quinn report “didn’t allow for accountability”.

“So long as that persists, people will continue to go off on solo runs,” she said, adding that such a public spat with State officials contradicting each other, with one person’s version being accepted by the minister over another’s, “surely is a situation you can’t move on from”.