Callely in the firing line

IT’S just after lunch time on Friday, December 17, and Junior Transport Minister Ivor Callely is walking back to his office when he answers his mobile.

Perhaps unwisely, he agrees to an immediate interview in his office.

Unbeknownst to him, Tánaiste Mary Harney has just released to the Dáil internal minutes proving that former Health Minister Micheál Martin and Mr Callely were both at a certain meeting in the Gresham Hotel exactly a year previously.

At the meeting between the ministers and health board chiefs, the consequences of charging long-stay patients for care were clearly outlined.

Neither Mr Martin, the man responsible for the entire health system, nor Mr Callely, the man directly responsible for elderly people, have ever adequately explained how the nursing home issue was kicked to touch for years until both of them had switched departments.

They might have got away with ducking for cover if the Supreme Court had not this week ruled against Mary Harney’s legislative attempt to retrospectively address the issue.

But now public finances are severely in the black and a report on the matter, from former Forfas head John Travers, is due next month.

More than €50 million squandered on electronic voting failed to see a Government minister fall from office.

But what about taking €500m to €2 billon illegally from thousands of the most vulnerable in society?

Ten minutes after answering his mobile, Ivor Callely sits in the corner of his grand ministerial office.

Recalling the Gresham meeting, he confirms that Micheál Martin had arrived late and missed the crucial debate on nursing home charges.

Although not being present for part of a meeting does not, by any means, let him off the hook, it quite deliberately places the spotlight firmly back on those who were actually present.

Leafing through the minutes of the meeting, Ivor Callely says the discussion focused on “eligibility issues rather than the legality of charges”.

But incredibly, the man who was directly responsible for elderly people, says he never raised the issue with his senior minister because he wasn’t aware patients were being charged.

Furthermore, he says he believed that people with medical cards should not be charged for long-term care.

This all begs one question. How can a minister responsible for elderly people, and a renowned constituency politician, not be aware that thousands of elderly people, and their representative organisations, were complaining about charges for years?

Had no one ever come to his office to discuss that problem?

“No,” comes the unlikely answer.

Pressed several times on this point, Mr Callely backtracks slightly. “I’d have to check my constituency files. It would take a lot of time.”

Later, Mr Martin, in crisis-management mode and working the phones to journalists, is in no doubt where the responsibility lies - not with him.

Following the Gresham meeting, a policy group report was drawn up within the department and a letter seeking legal advice from the Attorney General was drafted but not sent.

But asked whether he accepts responsibility for the issue, Mr Martin’s response is simple: “I can’t because I didn’t see that report.”

Hardly an adequate explanation for maladministration on a massive scale within his very own department.

But, as the opposition begins to call for a scalp, Micheál Martin is sending a clear message: if anyone has to give up his ministerial seat over this, it’s not going to be him.

Responsibility for bad news never flows uphill in Government, it falls to those below to bear the burden.

If anyone is to fall next month when John Travers produces his version of what went wrong, it will be Ivor Callely. And the man known as Ivor the Engine within the Department of Transport, hasn’t exactly been on track of late. Running to the press with billions worth of announcements which haven’t even been approved by Cabinet is unwise at the best of times.

Refusing to back down the following day, a move which resulted in headlines about being at war with his senior minister Martin Cullen, doesn’t help either. If Ivor Callely has a war to fight, it’s not with Martin Cullen. It’s his former boss he needs to watch out for.