Robert Watt

HSE search for new boss on €366,880 salary begins next month

The search for a new chief executive of the HSE will be launched next month offering a salary of €366,880, it emerged yesterday.

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exclusive Anne Rabbitte says disabilities is the ‘Cinderella’ within Department of Health – ‘We’re never the first thought’

Anne Rabbitte, the minister of state for disabilities, is anxious to get out of the Department of Health. It’s not that she wants another ministry; rather, she thinks she could do her current job better in another department.

Paul Reid raised issue of ‘unwarranted slurs’ against HSE staff with Department of Health

Outgoing HSE chief Paul Reid accused the Department of Health of “unwarranted slurs” on his staff in a row over leaked recordings of department meetings.

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Stephen Donnelly suggests mandatory mask-wearing could be reintroduced

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has suggested mandatory mask-wearing could be reintroduced on public transport and in shops as Ireland grapples with a summer wave of Covid-19.

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Never say Nphet again

Tony Holohan will resign as chief medical officer on Friday week after 14 years in the role. “In total demob mode,” is how one person who speaks with him regularly described his current mood.

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Eilish O'Regan Opinion No champagne as Sláintecare marks five years

It was the fifth anniversary yesterday of the launch of Sláintecare, the 10 -year plan to end our two-tier health service.

Release of 44 emails on Tony Holohan Trinity job ‘not in the public interest’, says official

The release of a flurry of emails around Tony Holohan’s move to Trinity College – which show it took more than a month before Health Minister Stephen Donnelly was copied – has been refused because it is not “in the public interest”.

Stephen Donnelly at odds with top civil servant Robert Watt over Dáil committee appearance into Holohan job

Stephen Donnelly is at odds with his top civil servant Robert Watt, who is declining to appear before an Oireachtas committee investigating the botched secondment of the chief medical officer to Trinity College Dublin.

Robert Watt and Dr Tony Holohan will appear before the Oireachtas Health Commitee next week

THE Department of Health's top civil servant Robert Watt and the chief medical officer Tony Holohan are to appear before the Oireachtas Health committee over the abandoned secondment of the CMO to an academic role in Trinity.

Robert Watt says it is not ‘reasonable’ to attend another Oireachtas committee for questions on Holohan-Trinity affair

Department of Health secretary general Robert Watt has said it is not “reasonable” for him to attend more than one Oireachtas committee to answer questions over the Tony Holohan-Trinity secondment debacle.

Robert Watt refusing to respond to Dáil committee investigating Holohan’s botched Trinity secondment

The Oireachtas Finance Committee has told top civil servant Robert Watt that it is “disappointed” that he has not provided requested information on the botched secondment of Dr Tony Holohan to Trinity College.

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Gerard O'Regan Opinion Watt could become real force for healthcare change

It’s a Katherine Zappone-type scenario all over again. The fact the Tony Holohan affair exploded so soon after the controversy that almost derailed Simon Coveney’s career is a reminder of the minefields that litter public life.

Timeline of the Dr Tony Holohan Trinity fiasco

August 2021 – Chief medical officer Tony Holohan first indicates he wants to consider future options. He speaks to Department of Health secretary general Robert Watt and secretary in the Department of the Taoiseach, Martin Fraser. Both support him and offer help. It would involve a public policy role outside of the department.

Tony Holohan row: Other universities confirm they’re the ones who pay people on secondment

The paymaster system for civil and public servants who are on secondment remains unclear – with questions around how it is managed following the planned transfer of chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan to Trinity College Dublin.

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Gene Kerrigan Opinion Mr Watt has a lightbulb moment

Here are three things I know about Robert Watt, super civil servant, who heads up the Department of Health. First, his wages are in the neighbourhood of €298,000 a year — and that’s a very nice neighbourhood indeed.

Two probes launched into Robert Watt’s pledge of €2m a year in funds for Tony Holohan job

Department of Health chief Robert Watt’s undertaking for €2m in funding a year to support Tony Holohan’s Trinity College post is at the centre of two inquiries.

Past 10 days saw job deal fall apart

Friday, March 25

Editorial Opinion Government is presented with a credibility problem

There are those who may argue it is the civil servants who run a country, not the government, but that’s a perception no Taoiseach or minister should take lying down.

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The questions that still have to be answered about the Tony Holohan €2m-a-year Trinity job

The plot thickens once more on the saga surrounding the now botched appointment of chief medical officer Tony Holohan to a Trinity College professorship.

exclusive Robert Watt’s ‘strictly confidential’ letter to Trinity agreed Department of Health would give €2m a year for Holohan secondment

A letter from Secretary General Robert Watt to Trinity College Provost Linda Doyle more than a week before it was announced that Tony Holohan was to take up a professorship, agreed that the Department of Health would make a ring-fenced allocation of €2m a year for the duration of his secondment to his retirement.

Letters to the Editor Opinion Ireland could do a lot more to help save Ukrainian lives

Your editorial, ‘Western powers must do all they can for Ukraine’ (Irish Independent, April 12), should also be asked of Ireland.

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Philip Ryan Opinion Fiasco surrounding Tony Holohan’s stalled move to Trinity raises questions over accountability for our health service – and the future of minister Stephen Donnelly

So who’s in charge of our health service? Is it Health Minister Stephen Donnelly or is it Department of Health secretary-general Robert Watt? Maybe it’s HSE boss Paul Reid. Who knows?

State agency says it was unaware of plan for it to fund Tony Holohan’s TCD salary

Chief medical officer Tony Holohan’s Trinity College salary – estimated at €2m over 10 years – looked as if it would have come directly from the Department of Health’s payroll, triggering concern at the highest level.

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Fionnán Sheahan Opinion In defence of Robert Watt, a public sector Michael O’Leary who calls out hokum

A big fat pay rise would come in handy for most given the spiral of costs on everything from a cup of coffee to the electricity bill. The 15pc you’re getting in the summer will come in handy to stave off the inflationary wolf at the door.

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Another fine mess: civil servants under fire as Tony Holohan quits public service

Last Wednesday morning Stephen Donnelly said he fully supported Tony Holohan’s move to an academic post at Trinity College Dublin. “Tony was looking for a new challenge, he wanted to stay in public service, I think we’re very lucky,” he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

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Civil servants under fire as Tony Holohan gives up top Trinity College role amid row over botched appointment

Chief medical officer Tony Holohan will quit the public service entirely this summer after the Taoiseach paused the medic’s planned move to an academic post at Trinity College Dublin.

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Shane Ross Opinion Mandarins lording it over ministers

There is a serious sickness contaminating the Department of Health. He may have stepped away from his plum new role after a week of controversy, but the now abandoned ‘secondment’ of chief medical officer Tony Holohan to a professorship at Trinity College Dublin is a symptom of a wider disease in the land of the mandarins. The Department of Health is an independent republic where they have been allowed to wander off the reservation. The normal rules do not apply.

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Eilish O'Regan Opinion Painful unpicking of Tony Holohan’s new Trinity job was met with a wall of departmental silence

Secrecy is the greatest fuel for breeding suspicion.

Wall of silence: So who did sign off on Tony Holohan’s €187k Trinity College move?

The Department of Health has refused to answer questions about who signed off on Dr Tony Holohan’s secondment to a newly created role in Trinity College while continuing to fund his €187,000 public service salary.

John McGuinness presented Health Minister Stephen Donnelly with child’s soother, it has emerged, to ‘soothe things over’

IT HAS emerged that Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness presented Health Minister Stephen Donnelly with a child’s soother at a party meeting, as the pair’s ongoing public spat continues to rumble on.