The senior civil servant who signed off on Dr Tony Holohan’s now abandoned Trinity College new job has said in a report it was normal practice that Health Minister Stephen Donnelly wasn’t made aware about the finer details of the move.
The Chief Medical Officer has now announced he will not take up the new job after the Taoiseach asked for a report into the matter following controversy that the Department of Health would continue to pay his €187,000 salary.
Robert Watt, the secretary general of the Department of Health, argues in the report that it was his area of responsibility under the law, so Minister Donnelly did not need to be informed about the secondment.
READ MORE: Taoiseach speaks out on botched Tony Holohan Trinity job
Asked about the report on Tuesday, the Taoiseach confirmed that the appointment of Dr Tony Holohan to the position in Trinity College Dublin would have cost the Department of Health €2 million over 10 years.
Mr Martin disputed that his intervention when he asked for Dr Holohan’s secondment to be paused and a report into the matter led to Dr Holohan announcing he will no longer take up the job and would step back from public life on July 1.
He said: “People know the respect that I have for Dr Holohan which goes back over a long number of years.
"I find the entire situation that we are in regrettable.
“There should have been more transparency about this from the outset.”
He said the situation was “regrettable” and he believed “there should have been more transparency from the outset.”
Speaking to RTE, Social Democrats co-leader Roisin Shortall said it was "shocking" that Minister Donnelly was not aware of the full details of the appointment.
She said: "You’d have to ask, has Stephen Donnelly lost authority within the department? Has he lost control of what’s going on there? Certainly, the Taoiseach’s intervention in my view raises questions about his confidence in the minister.
"You would imagine the minister would have been told by his Secretary General about the detail of it but secondly if he wasn’t, that he would have asked a question about it.”
READ MORE: Dr Tony Holohan announces plan to retire as CMO and not take up Trinity job after 'controversy'
READ MORE: Micheal Martin puts Dr Tony Holohan's appointment to taxpayer-funded Trinity College role on hold
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