Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have two groups of questions. Perhaps we will divide them and spend five minutes on each. The Minister will not be surprised that my first set of questions relates to the famous letters I have been requesting for three and a half weeks and which I now have. They are explosive. I can see why the Minister did not want to publish them and why I had to keep asking for them. They would have been revealed one way or the other because I had asked a parliamentary question in respect of them and half a dozen freedom of information requests had also been made in that regard. They come to the nub of the governance issues about which I have previously asked. In his letter of 23 March Paul Reid flagged to the Minister that "the Board is understandably concerned that its statutory governance role is respected." The most explosive letter is dated 19 April, when the CMO had announced that 15,000 tests a day or 100,000 tests a week were going to be delivered pretty quickly even though it had been said it would be delivered a month earlier based on the view of Dr. Cillian de Gascun. In this letter Mr. Reid says:

Regrettably, I was taken very much by surprise by Dr Holohan’s letter of 17 April 2020 [which I believe was the night he appeared on the "Late Late Show"] and also by the NPHET press conference which preceded the letter arriving. The directions as set out in the above letter and press conference are at odds with the process that we have been jointly engaged in at both the Government Cabinet Committee and in subsequent meetings with Secretary General Fraser. They are also at odds with the process in place with the HSE Board.

Worryingly, he also says that he is "extremely disappointed that these understandings appear not to have been respected." The CEO of the HSE wrote to the Secretary General of the Department of Health basically to say that the process that had been put in place through a Cabinet sub-committee and the board of the HSE was not being respected by the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET. Despite this, we have heard denials from the Minister, the Taoiseach and the CMO that any tensions existed. The chair of the HSE wrote to the Minister on 8 April, on 20 April and on 24 April. The Minister responded to him on 27 April. Given the crisis we are in, the period of time from 8 April to the 27 April is pretty significant.

I have real concerns about governance. Why did the Minister deny that these tensions existed when we can now see, in black and white, that there were real issues, particularly in respect of the roll-out of testing? The CMO publicly announced a process different from that agreed by the board of the HSE, which has full authority in respect of governance. The Minister stands over policy and it stands over governance. This process had also been agreed through the Cabinet sub-committee.

Why was there not a concern that the CMO made this statement which was counter to that? Why was the Minister not concerned about it?

Will the Minister outline to the House and provide the documentation regarding the appointment of everybody to NPHET? The Minister is over NPHET. The line structure stated by the Taoiseach is that it reports to the Minister. Obviously, there must be documentary evidence regarding how people are appointed to NPHET. I ask the Minister to provide that to us in respect of all those people - some very fine people. Will the Minister also explain to the House why in any form of good governance minutes are not agreed at the beginning of each meeting and then published?

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