Gino Kenny Questions Tailor-Made Secondment for Dr Houlihan
Gino Kenny challenged officials over confusion surrounding Dr Houlihan's secondment, arguing the post appeared tailor-made and that protocol and criteria were handled shoddily. He pressed for details on who devised the role, the scale of funding and the open-ended nature of the arrangement.
Tailor-made post and origins
Mr Watt said the position arose out of conversations between Dr Houlihan and Trinity College, with the CMO indicating an intention to leave his current role at Trinity College. Trinity decided to establish the professorship or chair based on state funding commitments and a broader government commitment to advance capacity in the research area.
Concerns over protocol and terms
Kenny described the way the appointment was handled as 'shoddy' in relation to protocol and the selection criteria. Officials confirmed that secondment arrangements normally maintain the same grade and salary bands, and noted that there was no change in the terms and conditions proposed for the CMO moving across.
Scale of funding and open-ended tenure
Kenny queried the widely reported figure of 20 million euros, and officials suggested that the estimate likely reflects roughly 2 million euros multiplied over an expected tenure of about ten years. The secondment was described as open-ended in principle, potentially extending up to normal retirement age, and the funding would primarily support a lead or senior investigator and teams of researchers.
Public role and reaction
Kenny acknowledged public gratitude for Dr Houlihan's visibility during the pandemic while saying recent weeks had left a 'bad taste' about public service handling. In response, Dr Houlihan said he would have preferred it had not happened that way, emphasised the wider team effort across the department and health services, and resisted claiming sole credit for the pandemic response.
Succession and competition concerns
Dr Houlihan explained he had been reluctant to limit the appointment to a fixed five-year secondment because that could create doubt about the tenure of any successor and might deter applicants, thereby fettering the competition for a successor. He said he had made a related commitment to the department.
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Thanks to our guests coming in today. I think it is probably safe to say there has been a lot of confusion and ambiguity in relation to Dr Houlihan's position in the secondment. I think it is quite unfortunate that that has happened, I think, for everybody involved. My first question is to Mr Watt. Obviously, the position was tailor-made for Dr Houlihan's public service, particularly in the last two and a half years. Am I correct in saying that that position was tailor-made for Dr Houlihan? Yes, I think that is fair to say. Okay. Who came up with that original decision? I think it arose out of conversations between Dr Houlihan and ultimately Trinity College. There were discussions about how we can develop this research programme, how we can develop the capacity. The CMO made it known that he was intended to leave his current role at Trinity College. They were not the only university, but were interested in exploring how we could develop this. And then, based on the commitments overall that the State would fund, based on, as I mentioned before, the Government's commitment to this space, Trinity decided to establish this professorship, this chair. I think that is, Tony will correct me if I am wrong, but that is the broad genesis of how we got here. And we are motivated at all times in terms of trying to establish, trying to advance public interest and trying to advance what we thought was the best interest of the country in terms of the need for us to enhance our capacity in this space. I think most people, the general public, would not have begrudged Dr Houlihan's succumbent for further public health and so forth. But the way it was done, it was quite shoddy in relation to the protocol, the criteria, which is important, I think, very, very important. Is this kind of normal practice in relation to public servants going into succumbent arrangements in relation to their salary and generally staying the same, the salary that they have, and going into succumbent? Is that general practice? Yes. So, normally the succumbent arrangements would be that somebody would stay within the same grade or with the same salary bands. Yes, that would be the normal approach. And that was one of the issues here that obviously it was proposed. There was no change in, in effect, the terms of conditions of requirement of the CMO moving across. Okay. Just in regards to the monies involved, which are quite substantial, how does one come to the figure of 20 million euros, which has been bandied a row? I just haven't heard anybody explain how it is. I don't know, really, to be honest. I presume it's 2 million multiplied by an estimate of how long the CMO would have spent in the new proposed career. And, of course, that's speculation. But I think it's 2 million by 10, I think, is how we got there. And, obviously, it was an open-ended succumbent. So, in theory, Dr Houlihan could have been there for 10, 15 years if he wanted it, or even longer, is that correct? I think up to the normal retirement age that would be relevant, yes. And then, obviously, there would be other personnel in relation to the funding. Obviously, there would be other kind of experts. Yeah, exactly, Deputy. The intention would have been that this would fund, so I think that normally the term is a lead investigator or a senior investigator who would head up these research programmes. And then there would be groups of people. So, most of the funding would ultimately involve funding teams of people doing research. I guess that's where most of the spending would be incurred. Okay, okay. Just in relation to Dr Houlihan and, obviously, Dr Houlihan has been in the public guise in the last two and a half years in relation to the pandemic. And I think the vast majority of people would have, there would have been a lot of attention in relation to what Dr Houlihan has done. And I think there's a lot of gratitude in relation to your role during the pandemic and others as well. But I think, and this is kind of an honest question, has the last number of weeks left a bad taste in your mouth in relation to your public services over the last, not only the last two years, but obviously much further than that? Yes. Thanks, Deputy. Well, obviously, I'd prefer if it didn't happen, if it hadn't happened that way, and that's clear. I'd obviously prefer it to be in a different situation in terms of where this has ended up. I'll let others judge what the impact of anything I have done over the course of the previous 15 years. It doesn't take from any of that, in my view. But I'd just like the opportunity to say that the things that we have done as a country in relation to the pandemic haven't been things that I have singularly done. I have been visible in ways that lots of other people haven't been, but there has been an enormous effort. And I can start in the department and go all the way from there to the front lines of the health services. Right across the board, people visible and others less visible have played a significant role in helping to support the country's response to the pandemic. So this is not a credit I'm either wishing to or seeking to take entirely onto myself. And I did have the opportunity to say, and just when you mentioned about the open-ended, when I spoke to you at the committee the last day, to make clear that from my point of view, that was important. And the reason it was important was because if I was to say I was stepping back for a five-year period, as some have suggested, because that's the usual period of time in department-to-department level succulments, it would create a doubt and a certainty over the potential tenure of any successor of mine. And it would probably fetter the competition or likely make the competition for a successor less attractive. So you would get fewer people applying and a person who was successful, the possibility of me returning would arise. So I wanted to make clear, and this is the commitment I made to the department, and it was out of respect for the role and the potential appointment of a successor, and whoever that successor would be, that I didn't have an intention in seeking to come back as CMO, even if in the secondment terms it meant that I could, strictly speaking, if I wished to come back at some point in some other role. I wanted to be clear so that the ground could be left clear for another individual to decide to apply for the job, and to know that they would have a full and clear mandate in doing that job in the same way that I had. And I thought that was important for the role, and that's the reason that the period of time was potentially longer than five years. Okay. And will you step down in July as CMO? That's your intention? That's the intention that I announced for the reasons that I outlined earlier on. It wasn't the decision that, at the outset of all of this, I either wanted to make or saw myself making, but I think in the context in which this was unfolding, I believe it was the right decision for me personally, and it was the right decision to try to, if you like, help to move this issue on. And I think if things were differently, and you probably would admit this, if things were done properly in relation to protocol, you would have had an ASSA comment if things worked out. Well, if it didn't play out in the way that it played out in public, yes, that's absolutely the case, of course. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thank you.
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