'Nursing home' briefings cancelled, says Kelly

Michael Kelly, former secretary general of the Department of Health, has claimed that Minister for Health Mary Harney cancelled detailed briefings by senior officials that could have alerted her to the problem of nursing home charges at an earlier stage.

He also rejected allegations made previously by Ms Harney that he had withheld information on the charges in a briefing document prepared for Cabinet.

In a major presentation to the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children yesterday, Mr Kelly was scathing of the recent official report on the charges controversy drawn up by former head of Forfás John Travers.

Mr Kelly, who resigned from his post following publication of the report last month, suggested it had been more rigorous in examining the role of officials than of politicians.

In evidence that ran for almost five hours, he reasserted his claims that he had briefed his then minister, Micheál Martin, in December 2003 and in the following February, on the potential problems over the nursing home charges.

Mr Kelly said he accepted responsibility for the corporate performance, including the failures, of the Department of Health during his five years as secretary general. He also accepted responsibility for failing to "chase up" a letter which was supposed to have been sent to the Attorney General seeking legal opinion on the charges but which had never been sent out.

Mr Kelly said he realised, after reading a summary of legal opinion obtained by a health board indicating that the charges were illegal, that this was something that was urgent and could not be left to wait.

He said Mr Martin had been late for a meeting with health board chiefs in the Gresham Hotel in December 2003 at which the legal opinion was discussed. However, he had briefed the Minister on the matter when he met him in the foyer.

"I am quite clear that I did alert him to it. I have no doubt about it." He said he discussed the issue again the following February when the two considered the department's business plans for the year.

Mr Kelly said a folder containing a letter to the Attorney General seeking the legal opinion had gone missing. He believes it was sent to the Minister's office. Mr Martin has denied ever seeing it.

Mr Kelly said a department official, who heard Mr Martin's denial on the radio, had come forward and said she had seen it in the Minister's outer office. Mr Kelly believes the disappearance of the folder was accidental.

Following its disappearance the charges issues "had disappeared from the screen". The department had been preoccupied with the "white heat" of other issues such as the healthcare reforms and the EU presidency.

He confirmed that the nursing home charge had not been mentioned in briefing material provided for the Tánaiste on her appointment. However, he had asked officials to provide just a one- to two-page summary. He had wanted more detailed briefings with the Tánaiste, at which he believed the issue would have emerged, but these had been cancelled on her instruction.

He rejected absolutely earlier comments by Ms Harney that he had withheld information in a briefing document prepared for the Cabinet. Any omissions were due to time constraints and lack of access to the personnel involved.

However, he reserved his strongest criticisms for the Travers report which he maintained did not meet the required standards of natural justice and public administration.

"Staff at all levels responded to his inquiries in an open and professional manner. They did so on the assumption that a fair view would be taken of the department's actions on the matter in question.

"Given the overall tenor of the report, I would have difficulty accepting the assurances given were honoured, particularly so in my own case."

Mr Kelly said there was not "any benign motive" for Mr Travers including draft statements which he had made in his final report.

He said he was disappointed and disturbed that Mr Travers had described the senior management team in the Department of Health as "dysfunctional" without having ever met most of them.