In the late 1990s, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service was in crisis. In spite of having many excellent staff, this literally vital part of the health service had become a threat to public health. In or around 2,000 people had been given blood contaminated with hepatitis C or HIV. The need to rebuild the organisation and restore public confidence was one of the clearest imperatives of Irish public life, writes Fintan O'Toole
There was, therefore, a good deal of relief when Prof Patricia Barker agreed to take on the thankless but crucial task of overseeing its reinvention as the new chairwoman of the IBTS. A chartered accountant who teaches at the business school of Dublin City University, she is very good at what the IBTS had been very bad at - corporate governance.
Shockingly, however, Pat Barker resigned in August 2001. It was clear that she was deeply frustrated by continued infighting within the IBTS between its Dublin and Cork branches , a row exacerbated by Micheál Martin's insistence on appointing a disproportionate number of people from Munster to the IBTS board. But she has declined all public comment.
I can, however, reveal for the first time the extraordinary background to this appalling failure of public policy. I have seen two documents which Prof Barker sent to Mr Martin in the autumn of 2000, revealing her deep concerns about his ministerial appointments to her board. For the record, these documents were not shown to me by Pat Barker and she has declined to discuss them with me beyond confirming their authenticity.
On September 20th, 2000, after Mr Martin had made new and heavily Munster-centred appointments to the board, Prof Barker wrote to him. She pointed out that her board had identified gaps in its skills and competencies and, since the previous March, had been trying to meet Mr Martin to discuss how these gaps could be filled.
"As you are aware, I wrote to you in March regarding the membership of the board and invited you to discuss with the board the skills and competencies which it had identified as missing at that time... I have received no response to my letter and, on three separate occasions, you found yourself in a position to have to cancel, at a very late stage, planned meetings with the board."
Having failed to engage with the board in relation to the serious gaps in the areas of competence of its members, Mr Martin went ahead and appointed new members who, whatever their fine qualities, did not meet the needs that Prof Barker had identified. Her letter is scathing: "We were informed of the appointments you made which gave the board a competency profile as follows: seven medical consultants; one employee of your Department; one building society marketing executive; one retired hotelier; one university registrar; one hospital manager. You will observe that, inter alia, we have no audit, finance, HR, legal, pensions, transfusion medicine, pharmaceutical grade manufacturing, blood user or strategy expertise. I am concerned at these gaps."
Prof Barker also suggested that she herself had been "treated in an inappropriate manner" by the Minister: "My advice relating to membership of the board has been disregarded, incorrect information relating to the payment of a stipend has been released and I have been the subject of discrimination in relation to the value placed on my contribution."
Shortly after this letter was sent, Prof Barker drew up for the Department proposals for a restructuring of the board. These, too, contain caustic reflections on the use of the ministerial power of appointment: "As I mentioned to the Minister, the board structure is that of a non-executive supervisory board with no executive board of directors; the supervisory board being appointed by the Minister for Health and Children for the time being. This has one obvious consequence. Membership, to varying degrees, reflects the hue of government and/or the circle of acquaintance of the Minister. At present, I believe there are competency lacunae on both the supervisory board and the management team."
She pointed out that "at a time of highly damaging publicity for the IBTS" and when "the board has sought to strengthen its competencies, the Minister has appointed people with undoubted competencies but not necessarily those which align with those identified by the board. Recommendations made to the Minister by the board were not accepted. The Minister is unlikely to ask his appointees to step aside."
She then suggested radical restructuring of corporate governance in the IBTS in order "to create a board which would not be subject to criticism of Ministerial favouritism and would be perceived as being transparent, efficient and in the best interests of all stakeholders."
The bottom line is that Mr Martin was specifically warned that the IBTS, perhaps the most sensitive institution in the State, had serious gaps in the competency of its board and management teams and was asked to address these concerns by a chairwoman who had, as he himself put it when she resigned, "a widely recognised commitment to the improvement of our public services". He ignored those concerns in favour of tending his own political garden.