The former Health Minister, Micheál Martin, has told an Oireachtas Committee on Health he does not bear any responsibility for the illegal nursing home charges.
Asked by Labour Deputy Leader Liz McManus who was responsible, Mr Martin said he agreed with the conclusions of the Travers Report, that it had been a systemic corporate failure.
Deputy McManus asked the minister if he had any sense of shame at blaming everybody except himself.
She reminded him that he had received in writing the legal opinion that had been received by the South Eastern Health Board, and said it was extraordinary for any minister to say he had not read his brief.
Minister Martin said he was ‘fed up of the deputy and others rattling off’, that certain things ‘must be true’. He said a legal opinion was not legal advice, unless it came from the Attorney General.
He added that as the issue had been in the Department of Health for nine months, why had someone not said this was a significant issue, and why had no one prepared a paper for the minister on that issue.
Cttee hears from Kelly
Mr Martin has always insisted he was not briefed on the issue. However, yesterday, the former Secretary General of the Department of Health, Michael Kelly, told the committee he had ‘no doubt’ he raised the issue with Mr Martin.
Mr Kelly also claimed that the reason he had not told the incoming Health Minister, Tánaiste Mary Harney, about the charges issue was because she had cancelled briefings.
This claim was raised in the Dáil this morning by the Labour Leader, Pat Rabbitte, but it was dismissed by Ms Harney, who said the claim was ‘laughable’.
Ms Harney said it was ‘like saying your house is on fire, but I can't tell you because a meeting was cancelled’.
