Former secretary general of the Department of Health Michael Kelly will be among the first witnesses to be called before the Oireachtas health committee when it begins its in-depth consideration of the Travers report next month.
The committee hearings will provide Mr Kelly with an opportunity to comment publicly on the report for the first time. He was transferred from his top Department of Health post to the Higher Education Authority when the Travers report into illegal charging for nursing home care was published earlier this month.
The committee decided yesterday to begin public hearings on the report on April 12th and hearings will continue for two days a week over five weeks.
The first person to be called, if he is available, will be the author of the report and former head of Forfás, John Travers.
His report found that elderly people were illegally charged for nursing home care for more than 28 years even though the Department of Health knew there were concerns over the legality of the practice.
The second person due before the committee will be Mr Kelly, followed by the former minister for health Micheál Martin and junior ministers Ivor Callely and Tim O'Malley.
Mr Martin's advisers when he was at the Department of Health, Christy Mannion and Deirdre Gillane, will also be called, as will the former chief executive of the South Eastern Health Board and now director of the National Hospitals Office Pat McLoughlin.
He is being called to explain why it was that his health board sought legal advice on the practice in 2002. He forwarded the advice to the Department of Health and it was on the agenda of a meeting attended by Mr Kelly, Mr Martin, his advisers and two junior ministers in December 2003. That meeting decided to obtain the advice of the Attorney General on the legality of the charges. A letter was drafted but not sent.
Conflicting views on why the letter was not sent appeared in the Travers report. Mr Kelly believed he sent the letter with a background file to Mr Martin's office but Mr Martin said he never got it.
When Mr Travers has been heard, the committee will decide whether to also call other former secretary generals from the Department of Health and other former health ministers.
Hearings are due to conclude on May 11th after which the committee will report back to the Oireachtas.
The committee met in private session for more than an hour yesterday during which it was advised of its powers by a parliamentary legal adviser. It asked that adviser to see if some of the 80 pages of legal advice given to the South Eastern Health Board could be made available to the committee.
Minister for Health Mary Harney has already said she could not release it because it referred to other issues which were about to go before the courts and would prejudice the position of the State. However, the committee wishes to establish if some of it could still be released.