MASTER DECLINED INVITATION FOR AUDIT MEETING IN LETTER
IN a terse letter written by Dr Rhona Mahony in August last year, the Master of Holles Street declined an invitation to meet with a senior figure from the HSE’s internal audit division.
In the letter – dated August 29, 2016 – to Dr Geraldine Smith in the HSE’s internal audit division, Dr Mahony raised her concerns about a ‘purported gesture of a further extension of time’ to respond to the final draft reports.
Dr Mahony felt this ‘short extension’ which was in the middle of ‘the busiest part of the holiday season is bordering on disingenuous’. The letter went on to to highlight further concerns about their response to the final draft and it appeared she took particular issue with recommendations contained in that report being addressed to the HSE’s national director of acute hospitals (Liam Woods) who was set to be responsible for implementing them.
She also highlighted the delivery of a report by a courier to ‘the Semi-Private Clinic’ without being marked for the attention of anyone, a move and motive of which she described as being ‘open to speculation’.
She finally signed off by acknowledging Dr Smith’s offer of ‘a meeting to discuss’ her findings, but concluded: ‘You will appreciate that in all of the circumstances, I see little point in a meeting between us. If any meeting is to make sense, it would have to be a meeting with Mr Liam Woods’.