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.