{"id":2089,"date":"2023-04-18T16:05:50","date_gmt":"2023-04-18T15:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/tanaiste-must-comment-on-dispute-between-his-officials-and-robert-watt\/"},"modified":"2023-09-15T10:41:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T09:41:30","slug":"tanaiste-must-comment-on-dispute-between-his-officials-and-robert-watt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/tanaiste-must-comment-on-dispute-between-his-officials-and-robert-watt\/","title":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste Must Comment On Dispute Between His Officials and Robert Watt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>The T\u00e1naiste should tell us whose version of events he believes \u2013 Mr Watt\u2019s or his officials<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The T\u00e1naiste must address the clear contradictions in the accounts of the secretary general of the Department Of Health, Robert Watt, and his senior officials on the circumstances surrounding the botched secondment of Dr Tony Holohan to Trinity College Dublin, according to Social Democrats Health Spokesperson R\u00f3is\u00edn Shortall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe long-awaited report into the botched attempted secondment of former chief medical officer, Tony Holohan, has finally been published \u2013 but it contains clear contradictions in the accounts of senior officials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRemarkably, the T\u00e1naiste has yet to comment on the fact that his chief of staff, during his tenure as Taoiseach, Deirdre Gillane, and the secretary general of the Department of Health, Robert Watt, appear to be at war with each other.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMs Gillane has said Mr Watt\u2019s assertion that she was informed of the secondment of Mr Holohan is \u201cgrossly inaccurate\u201d, \u201cfatuous\u201d and \u201cwholly without foundation\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe former secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach, Martin Fraser, has also disputed Mr Watt\u2019s version of events.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe T\u00e1naiste should now tell us whose version of events, in his debacle, he believes \u2013 Mr Watt\u2019s or his officials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are questions for Health Minster Stephen Donnelly arising from this report also. Namely, what accountability will there be for the fact that Mr Watt appears to have gone on a solo run when the secondment of Dr Holohan, at a cost of \u20ac23 million to the State, was being engineered behind the scenes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead of taking action, the Health Minister sat on this report for more than six months \u2013 and now, after all of that time, tells us his Department may review it to locate \u201clearnings\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis report is clear that protocols surrounding the secondment of officials were not followed \u2013 while some of the most senior officials in government cannot even agree the narrative of what happened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe T\u00e1naiste and the Health Minister must do more than bury this report \u2013 we need answers to those two crucial questions: who do they believe and where is the evidence of any accountability?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>18 April, 2023<\/p>\n<p>Ends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The T\u00e1naiste should tell us whose version of events he believes \u2013 Mr Watt\u2019s or his officials The T\u00e1naiste must address the clear contradictions in the accounts of the secretary general of the Department Of Health, Robert Watt, and his senior officials on the circumstances surrounding the botched secondment of Dr Tony Holohan to Trinity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7,264],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-press-release","category-roisin-shortall"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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