The whistleblower at the centre of a series of protected disclosures at the Department of Health has said a public inquiry is needed into the State's denial of allowance payments to people with disabilities in residential care.
Shane Corr said nothing less than a public inquiry will suffice.
"It should take the format of a public inquiry. We need an advocate for these people, the most vulnerable people in the State, who often have no capacity to make a decision on their own," Mr Corr told Prime Time.
Mr Corr has now confirmed that, in an email sent to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in December 2019, he specifically raised the issue of people in care being denied their Disabled Person’s Maintenance Allowance.
In the email to Mr Varadkar, who was Taoiseach at the time, Mr Corr wrote: "The state hid from ten thousand disabled people (and their families) liabilities estimated in the range of 230m to 580m, plus interests and costs. These amounts were in respect of payments due to Disabled Persons."
Responding to Mr Corr’s claims, a spokesperson for Mr Varadkar confirmed tonight that the Taoiseach’s office did receive the correspondence from the whistleblower.
In a statement, the spokesperson said: "As the matter related to correspondence to the PAC, and the PAC had already been contacted by Mr Corr, the correspondence was acknowledged and forwarded to the Department of Public Expenditure, which is the line Department for the PAC, in accordance with standard practice."
It went on: "Mr...
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