Ms Mary Harney:

Earlier I dealt with that as well. The former president informed me on 5 May that he wanted to resign because he was not able to carry out his duties because he was vulnerable to Covid. I sought to get a date from the president. He engaged through his lawyers and said he wanted a 12 month payment in lieu of notice. Unfortunately his contract of employment had no notice period. We took legal advice. There is a lot of case law which I mentioned earlier. Careyv.Independent Newspapers, Murphy v.Department of Education and the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, in the context of the resignation of the director general of the HSE all upheld that in this kind of situation payment in lieu of notice is paid. The negations took place between our lawyers and the lawyers for the former president. They settled on a four-month payment in lieu of notice. He got two months where he worked virtually. Part of it was his holidays. It was four months. If it had been a severance payment he would have been entitled to over €12,000 tax free. We taxed it all. If it had been a severance payment of course I would have consulted the Department. That would never be an issue for somebody like me. I would naturally follow the advice and do what was appropriate. The Department spoke earlier. We differ on this. They say doctors differ and patients die. Lawyers differ too. The Department's view from its legal perspective and the view we had were very different and I followed the legal advice that was available to me