Whistleblowing civil servant says meetings were deliberately not recorded to avoid FOI

Department of Health whistleblower Shane Corr said staff within the department were instructed that discussions about alleged financial irregularities were not to be recorded in a way that would make it accessible under Freedom of Information

In an August letter to Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Michael McGrath, Shane Corr said since January of 2020 he had 'witnessed extraordinary breaches of public financial procedures and the public spending code' amounting to from 'the tens, to hundreds of millions of euros'. Picture:: Julien Behal

A whistleblower at the Department of Health has said staff within the department were instructed that discussions about alleged financial irregularities were not to be recorded in a way that would make it accessible under Freedom of Information.

In an August letter to Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Michael McGrath, Shane Corr said since January of 2020 he had “witnessed extraordinary breaches of public financial procedures and the public spending code” amounting to from “the tens, to hundreds of millions of euros”.

Mr Corr, who is currently suspended on full pay from the department, had alleged using transcripts and recordings of internal departmental meetings, a number of issues between the department and the HSE.

They included the suggestion a large-scale adjustment would be necessary for the executive’s 2020 accounts — the adjustment eventually totalled €71.4m — and that the HSE’s recruitment targets for 2021 were only half of what they had been budgeted for.

In response to Mr Corr’s actions, the department said the recordings used to back up his allegations had involved “partial statements that were taken out of context and also... some factual inaccuracies”.

In his letter to Mr McGrath, who is working on a review of FoI law, Mr Corr said, however, that the issues he had raised had been common knowledge.

“Often, while discussing these matters, we were instructed that they were “not for FoI”, “not to go outside the room”, “not for minutes”, or “Chatham House Rules (non-attributable) apply”,” he wrote, suggesting the discussions in question were not to be made accessible to the general public.

Mr Corr said he believed it was “partially” for this reason the State’s accountant, the Comptroller and Auditor General, has been unable “to report on the problems”.

"Consequently, committees of the Oireachtas are working without full visibility of the matters,” he wrote.

The Department of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the contents of the letter to Mr McGrath.

Mr Corr states in the correspondence he had asked “for a disclosures process” but had been refused, and had then told the Department of Health’s secretary-general Robert Watt that he would “have to inform the media, which I duly did”.

“These matters concern the mismanagement, and misreporting, of colossal expenditure within the health system,” he said, adding there were "perfectly identifiable reasons why each euro is significantly devalued as soon as it enters” said system.

“The tax-paying public are entitled to know the extent of these problems, and to be given an understanding of how they are contributing to the failures of the health system,” he said, adding only “a prompt public inquiry will illuminate the problems sufficiently”.

"The days of the civil service shielding itself from proper scrutiny must come to an end,” he said.