Holohan’s new job may yet take the heat off RTÉ
FOR about ten minutes it looked as if Tony Holohan’s return to public life might knock RTÉ off the front pages. It still might, when the new job for the former chief medical officer (CMO) is confirmed.
It emerged on Thursday that he is earmarked to be a public health medicine consultant, in the HSE’s National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP), at a salary of up to €257,000.
Apparently, he is the successful candidate after an open competition, which is important as otherwise some people would allege a stitch-up, a job for the insider after a previous failed effort to land him a sinecure at Trinity College, paid for by the State, was derailed.
Nonetheless, social media posters were outraged by the salary that he will get, apparently up to €257,000 at the top of the scale – well ahead of the €180,000 he got as CMO before resigning last year.
Holohan was, for a period, arguably the country’s most famous man, the face of the battle against Covid.
He won widespread respect for his authority and was central to most people going along with restrictions to their liberties for the common good.
However, there is a cohort of people who can’t stand him. They feel that he went too far, for too long, with the restrictions. They also have issues with how he advised the Government against an external review about the cervical cancer screening programme, offering to do the job himself.
The then-Minister for Health Simon Harris rejected his offer.
Holohan offended quite a few people when he said there was a ‘very poor understanding’ among the public as to what happened during the CervicalCheck scandal.
He does not always have a good bedside manner, but his interest in preventing cancer, wherever possible, is personal. His wife, Dr Emer Holohan, died in 2021 after suffering for a decade from a rare form of blood cancer. She endured a miserable time and, as he detailed in his memoir last year, two chances for early diagnosis that might have helped were missed.
Such a bitter experience can still be put to good use.