A dispute born of HSE unaccountability

PHILOMENA CANNING has been allowed to return to work. Three weeks ago, the last time this column visited the State’s attack on Ms Canning, that phrase was hardly imaginable

The Health Service Executive had tied itself in knots, giving the serious impression that it was trying to hang Ms Canning any which way it could. Form suggested it would muddle on, behind closed doors, until finally somebody would shell out a chunk of public money in lieu of accountability.

Then, last Wednesday, apparently out of the blue, the HSE’s solicitors, Arthur Cox, wrote to Ms Canning’s that she could return to work, as “the temporary suspension is no longer in the public interest”. The burning question is whether it was ever in the public interest, or whether there was an agenda against an independent-minded woman who refuses to tug the forelock to those who regard themselves as her betters.