HSE appoints ‘insider’ Tony O’Brien as new director.

national | consumer issues | opinion/analysis

Friday May 11, 2018 22:13

by Joe Terry

Flashback to a July 28th, 2012 media report:
Tony O’Brien, who led a special unit charged with reducing hospital trolley numbers and waiting lists over the past year, is the new head of the HSE.

Tony O’Brien, who led a special unit charged with reducing hospital trolley numbers and waiting lists over the past year, is the new head of the HSE.

Mr O’Brien, 49, was announced as the director designate of the HSE by the Health Minister Dr James Reilly yesterday.

The HSE chief executive Cathal Magee announced last week he was leaving his position.

Mr Magee is expected to vacate his post over the next few weeks, with Mr O’Brien assuming the post of director general when new governance legislation is passed by the Oireachtas in the autumn.

Mr O’Brien, who is chief operating officer at the Department of Health’s Special Delivery Unit, was previously head of the Irish Family Planning Association.

He held a number of posts in the cancer area, including National Cancer Screening service chief executive.

Since Oct 2011 Mr O’Brien has been a member of the department’s management advisory committee and since December has held the post of chief executive of the National Treatment Purchase Fund.

Mr Magee said he did not want to be part of the Government’s reform programme that will see the abolition of the HSE in 2014. The board of the HSE is to be replaced by a directorate, headed by a director general that will be accountable to the minister.

However, the HSE’s legal status under the Health Act 2004 does not change and the status of HSE employees remains the same.

Dr Reilly said Mr O’Brien has shown he was able to implement progress in a range of different areas.

“I am satisfied that Tony O’Brien has the qualities needed to drive the essential reform required to ultimately end our two-tier health system. He also has the strategic ability to manage an enhanced architecture of financial control now being placed in the HSE,” said Dr Reilly.

Fine Gael TD and chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Health, Jerry Buttimer, said Mr O’Brien had considerable experience and an exemplary track record in health service delivery. But Fianna Fáil’s health spokesperson, Billy Kelleher, said he was disappointed the minister had picked “an insider” behind closed doors. The whole process lacked transparency and was typical of the increasingly arrogant approach of the minister, he said.