Tensions have emerged at the Public Accounts Committee after it was presented with an “ultra establishment” civil service-prepared press statement admonishing whistleblower Shane Corr.
On Thursday, the PAC published an amended statement stating the seven disclosures received by Mr Corr, a senior audit official in the Department of Health, are “no longer documents of the committee”.
That followed a report in this newspaper earlier this week which revealed that the committee had been advised to ‘demote’ Mr Corr’s disclosures.
However, the Irish Examiner can reveal that the original statement prepared for the committee attempted to “admonish” Mr Corr over the fact he had made recordings of multiple senior level departmental meetings without the attendees’ consent.
Multiple sources have said the paragraph in question was eventually dropped from the published statement after a tetchy two-hour behind-closed-doors meeting of the committee.
It is unclear whether or not the idea to send out Thursday’s statement — the text of which states it had resulted from the “commentary” surrounding the various disclosures in recent weeks — came from the committee itself or from its civil service-staffed secretariat.
It is understood the secretariat had received a request for comment from a media organisation regarding the legal advice offered to the committee following Tuesday’s Irish Examiner article on the same subject.
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