Serious concerns about aspects of the Travers report on nursing home charges are to be expressed by senior civil servants at a conference this week.
This reflects unease within the Civil Service about the implications of the Travers report for staff in terms of their relationships with ministers and accountability for decisions.
The report is the subject of an emergency motion to be debated at the annual conference of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants on Friday.
The motion calls for a model of corporate governance to be introduced for government departments and for the role of special advisers to ministers to be clarified on a statutory basis.
The report, on how older people with medical cards were illegally charged for care in public nursing homes for nearly three decades by having deductions made from their pensions, was published last month.
It found that while there had been "lapses of judgment" by ministers, the major failings lay at the door of the Department of Health and its officials.
In a letter to branch secretaries, the union's general secretary, Seán Ó Riordáin, said the report clearly had implications for the Department of Health and Children.
But there were also issues "touching on decision-making, corporate governance, responsibilities, accountabilities and relationships as between ministers, civil servants and special advisers arising from the report and [ its] recommendations".
The emergency motion, circulated with the letter, notes the Travers report "with serious reservations".
It calls for the introduction on a statutory basis of a model of corporate governance for departments on lines previously advanced by the association.
It is understood these would involve the establishment of management committees for government departments, chaired by ministers and with secretaries general acting as chief executives. The motion also calls for the role of special advisers to ministers to be clarified on a statutory basis.
The Travers report had said civil servants should not consider that telling something to a ministerial adviser was the same as telling it to a minister.
