The Department of Health has said it is the intention of Minister Stephen Donnelly to publish shortly an external review of the abandoned proposed secondment of former chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan to Trinity College Dublin.
The review was commissioned in April last year and conducted by Maura Quinn, a former chief executive of the Institute of Directors.
Her report was submitted to Minister Donnelly last June.
Today the department said that: "The Minister for Health has always said he would publish the report and it is his intention to do so shortly."
Last April, RTÉ News revealed that the post was to be an open-ended secondment, funded by the Department of Health via the Heath Research Board, and that the post was created by TCD with Dr Holohan in mind and was not put out to open competition.
The appointment was to be as Professor of Public Health Strategy and Leadership.
After controversy arose over the issue, then taoiseach Micheál Martin said he was unaware of the details of the arrangements.
Leo Varadkar, then tánaiste, said the nature of the post should have been made clear at the outset and that it could have been handled better.
Later, Dr Holohan decided that he would not proceed with the secondment and would retire as chief medical officer from 1 July last.
A briefing document on the issue by Robert Watt, Secretary General of the Department of Health, published in April 2022 after the controversy, showed that the planned move to TCD would cost €2 million a year and €20m if Dr Holohan remained in the post for ten years.
At a subsequent Oireachtas Health Committee meeting in May last year, Mr Watt defended his role in the planned academic appointment.
The original statement from the Department of Health in March on the appointment of Dr Holohan to the planned post had not contained all of the details.
At the committee hearing, Mr Watt said the department at the time had been bounced into making a statement and he did not want it to be leaked that the chief medical officer was moving on, while Covid-19 was still an issue.
The terms of reference for the Quinn Review were to determine lessons from the process related to the proposed secondment of Dr Holohan and the associated research proposal and to make recommendations that could inform future such initiatives.
