Senior civil servants yesterday expressed "serious reservations" about the Travers report on nursing home charges and claimed it had reached "unwarranted" conclusions.
Delegates to the annual conference of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants expressed anger about the report's findings, which focused on the role of civil servants in the charges controversy.
The report, on how older people with medical cards were illegally charged for care in public nursing homes for nearly three decades by having deductions made from their pensions, was published last month.
It found that while there had been "lapses of judgment" by ministers, the major failings lay at the door of the Department of Health and its officials. There was "long-term systemic corporate failure" by the department, it said.
The report's author, John Travers, was criticised yesterday by association general secretary Seán Ó Riordáin for the manner in which he had conducted the inquiry.
Mr Ó Riordáin said it was a "golden rule" of any investigation that one went directly to the prime sources.
The Department of Health had had six secretaries general during the period covered by the inquiry, three of whom were now deceased.
While Mr Travers had met the secretary general who was in place during the inquiry, Michael Kelly, he had spoken only by phone to his two living predecessors, John Hurley and Gerry O'Dwyer.
Mr Ó Riordáin said this had been confirmed by Mr Travers to the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children.
His report had also made it clear that the files showed there was a political dimension to the failure to address the illegal charges issue.
However, as the files did not fully explain what had happened, it surely would have been reasonable for Mr Travers to interview the ministers, taoisigh and attorneys general who had held office during the relevant period.
"All of us know that the files don't say everything," said Mr Ó Riordáin.
The association would have thought that if someone was going to reach a damning finding covering a 28-year period, the prime sources would have been accessed.
It was difficult not to conclude that the process was "flawed" as a result of Mr Travers's failure to do so. "In a situation where there are questions about the process, then that also raises questions about the findings."
It was the intention of the people of Ireland, expressed in the Constitution, that ministers be in charge of departments, Mr Ó Riordáin added.
A conference delegate, Eamonn Corcoran of the union's health and children branch, said Mr Travers's finding of systemic failure in the department over 28 years was "a sweeping statement that is unwarranted and is not justified in the report itself".
