A Tipperary TD has weighed in on the Robert Watt and the abandoned secondment of Dr. Tony Holohan to Trinity College Dublin controversy.
A report published this week found Tony Holohan’s botched secondment “bypassed all accepted protocols.”
The Secretary General of the Department of Health, Robert Watt, said this week he did not accept the findings.
The Finance Committee will seek more hearings on the Holohan appointment.
Local TD Mattie McGrath says it all started on a bad note.
“This started on a bad note because Robert Watt was asked to move to Heath from Public Expenditure, now he hadn’t ingratiated himself there. He refused to move from public service without a huge increase in salary so why wouldn’t he act this way? He waltzes in then like John Wayne the other morning – on his own, so there’s obviously something very rotten going on in the department because there was no other officials with him.”
Speaking on Tipp Today, Deputy McGrath said he is not surprised by Minister Stephen Donnelly’s statement that Robert Watt would not be reprimanded.
“Stephen Donnelly has no political in-house. He went independent; he went to the Social Democrats; Michael Martin offered him the Minister of Health and he joined Fianna Fail; and he’d join Saddam Hussein if he got power! He doesn’t give a damn about the people of the electors. See, the problem in health is that there’s too many skeletons in health, and I don’t mean that physically. You have the blood samples going missing; it goes back 30 years. You’ve had so many cover-ups. What other country in the world would there be no resignations and no ministers and senior officials sacked if they wouldn’t go? It’s time we started sacking these people.”
