Government departments must answer why CHI manager's deal has not been approved yet

High Court reporter

A High Court judge wants two Government departments to answer why no decision has been made on whether to approve a successful mediation process of an employment dispute between Children's Health Ireland (CHI) and a business manager.

Nearly three months since mediation of the dispute between CHI and Anita Little over her purported dismissal, the Departments of Health and of Public Expenditure and Reform have still not approved the settlement, Judge Brian Cregan was told on Friday.

Little's dismissal as business manager was the result, she claimed, of an instruction by her superiors to delist 10 patients from the CHI spinal surgery waiting list.

She said it followed a flawed investigation and disciplinary hearing in which she was, among other things, deprived of her right to call witnesses in her defence, introduce exculpatory documentary evidence or challenge erroneous findings of fact or examine witnesses.

She got a High Court injunction preventing her dismissal but CHI later undertook not to take steps to dismiss and to continue to pay her pending resolution of the dispute.

Mediation talks then took place and following their conclusion last February, Little's counsel Richard Kean complained to Judge Brian Cregan on a number of occasions that despite the successful mediation, approval of the settlement was still awaited from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER).

On Friday, Kean told the judge that they had now been told that the approval of the Department of Health for the deal was also awaited. A letter was sent by the CHI's lawyers also saying the mediation process should not have even started without DPER approval.

Counsel said the effect of the refusal to make a decision on approval of the settlement was that his client could not take up a new job although she had been made offers. It also meant the State had already spent €20,000 on wages for Little "to do nothing".

Lorna Lynch, for CHI, said it had been expressly stated before the mediation that the approval of the two departments and of CHI would be required and there was no time limit on that.

Judge Cregan said what concerned him was that court time had initially been allocated to hear the injunction and was vacated when it went to mediation.

"I don't, for the life of me, understand why consent (from the departments) cannot be obtained in three months".

He agreed with Kean that "temperatures were being raised" because the departments "do not apply their minds" to the matter. If they do not give their consent, the court will give the matter a new hearing date, he said.

He wanted lawyers for Little and CHI to write to the two Government departments saying he had requested their attendance in court on the next date in June.