HSE told to hand over audit report
Following a meeting with the whistleblower, held in private, the PAC is demanding the HSE hand over the audit report, conducted by Deloitte before June 15, when health bosses are due back in before the committee.
PAC chairman Sean Fleming, speaking to the Irish Examiner, said the HSE will be told to provide the Deloitte report into claims of funding cuts to the whistle-blower’s agency when she highlighted the Grace case.
HSE director general Tony O’Brien said in a letter to the PAC on Wednesday that he hopes to provide it to the PAC by then but may be unable to do so.
Mr Fleming last night demanded the full report be handed over by June 15. He said: “It’s not ‘might be completed by then’; it is to be completed by then. While it’s a draft report, it was in the settlement [in court] and the time has come to look for it.”
The Deloitte report was due to be released by the end of April, and was highlighted in the recent High Court case which saw the HSE agree to pay Grace €6.3m because of failures in her care.
Included in that was a figure of €600,000, which was to cover the HSE’s failure to properly support her since the scandal emerged in 2009.
Mr Fleming said that, following the whistleblower’s briefing to the committee yesterday, the PAC will seek to question Mr O’Brien on a number of contradictions in evidence that have emerged.
Among the issues they wish to pursue is why a decision to remove Grace from the foster home in which she was abused was overturned. They will also further examine “possible conflicts of interests” in how tenders for two reports into the scandal were awarded.
“After today we have concerns the conflict of interest is far greater than we thought,” said one committee member.
The whistleblower briefed PAC members for two hours and was “remarkably courageous”.
The whistleblower will provide her testimony and evidence to the PAC directly to the newly established commission of investigation.
Committee members were in agreement in commending the whistleblower for her courage in speaking out.
“The amount of information and the courage that the whistleblower displayed was quite extraordinary,” said PAC member and Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell.
The whistleblower said she was happy with the engagement with the committee, saying the meeting was detailed and “added to their [PAC’s] understanding” of what’s happened.
The whistleblower said there is no reason why the Deloitte report cannot be published as the HSE has already accepted its findings.
Grace was one of 47 children and young adults with intellectual disabilities who went through the foster home, located in the south-east, and were subjected to sexual and physical abuse.
Following reports in the Irish Examiner last year, the previous Government committed to establishing a commission of inquiry. This was only formally established this year.
