Public Accounts Committee told to ignore whistleblower information
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The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has been advised to ignore all correspondence from a Department of Health whistleblower due to the way in which he gathered his information, the has learned.
The Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers (OPLA), the in-house legal team for the Oireachtas, has told the committee the various disclosures made by whistleblower Shane Corr in recent months should be “demoted”, or stricken from the record.
Confirming the news, PAC chair Brian Stanley said the committee “received legal advice to demote it, and the committee considered it important that it’s demoted”.
It is understood the issue with the disclosures made by Mr Corr chiefly revolves around the fact he made recordings of senior-level departmental meetings without the attendees' consent, and then shared those recordings with the newspaper.
Mr Stanley said “each piece of correspondence would be examined on its own merit, and is only demoted when the legal advice is to do so”.
However, he said the issues raised in the disclosures remain “quite serious” and that PAC “has to be cognisant of the issues raised, wherever they come from”.
Mr Corr, in a series of disclosures, had suggested a degree of animus between the Department of Health and the HSE, that “fake” and “batshit” recruitment targets had been put in place for the health service, that the HSE had been unable to account for where much of its 2020 budget had been spent, and that a prior year adjustment to the HSE’s accounts in the matter of “hundreds of millions” would need to be made in its 2021 financial statements.
Mr Corr is a senior official in the department, who previously came to public notice after an RTÉ programme he contributed to alleged the Department of Health was compiling “dossiers” of information regarding children with autism to aid in litigation battles.
Speaking regarding the issues raised by Mr Corr, Mr Stanley said “much of this is in the public domain, so it isn’t so much of a revelation”.
Another committee source said: “The inference the committee had gotten from the secretariat was that, if the information came illegally, it would have to be demoted.
“It basically means it isn’t on the record, it doesn’t have privilege, and the committee can’t actually consider the correspondence. If it were proved that the recordings were obtained illegally, then it would put the PAC on very dodgy ground.”
It is believed the OPLA also indicated that Mr Corr’s own position may have been compromised by the manner in which the recordings were acquired.
Asked for comment, Mr Corr said it was “reassuring” the PAC would be raising the issues he had brought to light.
“Public accountability is an important part of our parliamentary democracy. Hopefully, this will lead to improved financial performance and reporting within the health service,” he said.
“Such scrutiny provides the opportunity to enhance corporate governance and to develop trust between the key stakeholders.”