The costs of an employment dispute involving the former chief executive at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), the group that runs paediatric hospitals in Dublin, are now known to be more than €160,000.
The issue relates to proposals for a third term for former chief executive Eilísh Hardiman, which had clashed with Government policy on term limits.
CHI said it has now paid €39,911 as one party to a mediation process dealing with the future role of Ms Hardiman.
A meeting of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (Pac) last month was told Ms Hardiman’s legal costs of €123,000 were paid by the office of the Chief State Solicitor.
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The hospital group told The Irish Times that the amount of €39,911 “relates solely to CHI’s legal costs as one party to the mediation process”. The Chief State Solicitor’s Office did not pay CHI’s legal fees, it said.
The employment issue arose last year after the then minister for health, Stephen Donnelly, invoked Government policy that the chief executives of non-commercial State organisations should serve no more than two consecutive terms. He would not agree to sanction a third term for Ms Hardiman as CHI chief executive.
The Irish Times reported last year that CHI’s board had wanted to reappoint Ms Hardiman for another term but this was rejected by Mr Donnelly.
In a letter to the minister in December 2023, the then board chairman, Dr Jim Browne, said CHI was “surprised and disappointed” that its proposal to reappoint Ms Hardiman had not been accepted.
He argued it would take months to recruit a new chief executive and that the board believed stability and continuity of leadership were needed as the organisation prepared for the move to the new national children’s hospital.
At the Pac meeting in July Ms Hardiman said she had initiated legal action on the issue.
The issue centred on a clash between Government policy governing term limits for chief executives and whether, under provisions of employment law, Ms Hardiman was entitled to a long-term position.
“The board, in October 2023, sought a third term after my two previous consecutive five-year fixed-term contracts,” Ms Hardiman told the committee.
“It is Government practice and policy for non-commercial State board CEOs to be appointed for no more than two concurrent five-year terms. The minister applied that policy, which is within his right to do, and that was accepted by the board. Because it is an employment matter and because it was two fixed terms, the contract automatically became a contract of indefinite duration.”
Following a mediation process, Ms Hardiman was appointed in April last year to a new post of strategic programme director at CHI on her previous salary.
Fianna Fáil TD Séamus McGrath had sought clarity on the amounts paid out in respect of legal fees as well as on any other external or professional services in relation to the mediation process.
He criticised the amount paid out as part of the resolution.
“When CHI was before the Public Accounts Committee recently, they were not able to provide full details of the entire professional fees associated with the dispute resolution process involving the former chief executive,” he said this weekend.
“We now know some additional fees, which brings the disclosed amount so far to an extraordinary figure. I will be further questioning if this is the entirety of the fees involved as I believe more clarification is needed. It is totally unjustifiable that such an amount was spent to resolve a dispute involving one position within the organisation.”
