Tensions at PAC over civil service statement on whistleblower
Health, Went At Of Servant Details With Civil Picture: Public Department Corr, A Secret Investigates/rté Dossiers Senior Rté Shane Of The The
Tensions have emerged at the Public Accounts Committee after it was presented with an “ultra establishment” civil service-prepared press statement admonishing whistleblower Shane Corr.
On Thursday, the PAC published an amended statement stating the seven disclosures received by Mr Corr, a senior audit official in the Department of Health, are “no longer documents of the committee”.
That followed a report in this newspaper earlier this week which revealed that the committee had been advised to ‘demote’ Mr Corr’s disclosures.
However, the can reveal that the original statement prepared for the committee attempted to “admonish” Mr Corr over the fact he had made recordings of multiple senior level departmental meetings without the attendees’ consent.
Multiple sources have said the paragraph in question was eventually dropped from the published statement after a tetchy two-hour behind-closed-doors meeting of the committee.
It is unclear whether or not the idea to send out Thursday’s statement — the text of which states it had resulted from the “commentary” surrounding the various disclosures in recent weeks — came from the committee itself or from its civil service-staffed secretariat.
It is understood the secretariat had received a request for comment from a media organisation regarding the legal advice offered to the committee following Tuesday’s article on the same subject.
“What they eventually put out was really watered down from what the secretariat wanted to put out,” one source said.
A second source said “the committee didn’t seek a press statement, put it that way. What they were given was ultra establishment and it didn’t sit right. The whistleblower has not been wrong in what he said. The only issue that should be of concern is the substance of the disclosures,” they said.
“The statement as presented could have been interpreted that the committee was admonishing Mr Corr,” said another source. “So that paragraph was removed. We don’t want to deter or in any way discourage a whistleblower, they are already treated atrociously in this country.”
However, other sources suggested the disagreement had been overblown. “It was about getting the balance right, about showing that PAC had legal advice saying the documents couldn’t be considered, but at the same time showing we’d be pursuing the issues,” said one.
A source on the secretariat said the “statement was a committee one”. “There won’t be any further comment,” they added.
In the wake of Mr Corr’s recordings and disclosures alleging financial governance issues within the health service being covered across the national media, the Department of Health and Government politicians had emphasised the recordings of officials had been “made and released without their knowledge”.