OUR MINISTER FOR SHAMBLES
Halligan claims he also asked man if he had family... ... an hour later he says he can’t recall if that’s true Then shock at brother’s bizarre ‘rape’ comments
JOHN Halligan landed himself in even deeper trouble yesterday after a series of car-crash interviews by both himself and his election-agent brother.
The disastrous comments came only a day after the beleaguered minister appeared to save his job by offering to pay a €7,500 fine his department incurred, after he asked a female job applicant if she had children.
But yesterday he re-ignited the
concern over his comments. He told RTÉ’s Today With Seán O’Rourke yesterday that he had asked the same question of a male applicant for the job – only to contradict this statement an hour later by telling another RTÉ journalist that he couldn’t remember if that was true.
Later the Workplace Relations Commission, which investigated the matter and issued a €7,500 fine, said only the woman was asked whether she had a family.
Then later, his brother Brendan, who is also his election agent, ridiculed the fine and compared the situation to the plight of a woman who had been raped and couldn’t get an abortion ‘because the supports are not in this country to do it’.
Mr Halligan, who is on a ministerial trip to Thailand, began the day by telling O’Rourke: ‘Yes, I did ask male candidates the same question. I was asking to make people feel at ease, asking what do you do in your spare time.’
When asked again if he asked male interviewees the same question, he said: ‘Yes, I did ask that
‘The buck stops with me on this’
chap, for the same reason. I did it to be accommodating, that is all it was. It wasn’t specifically because a woman was being asked.’
Referring to a separate situation, he added: ‘There is a chap in Waterford who works with me. I knew he had three children, so I didn’t have to ask him when he got a job with me. People can bash me over the head… but I didn’t do this deliberately.’
He said: ‘It was a mistake, a genuine mistake. It is my responsibility, it is my mistake… the buck stops with me on this.’
But a number of hours later, Mr Halligan told RTÉ political correspondent Martina Fitzgerald that he couldn’t remember if had asked a male interviewee if he had a wife and family.
And it was after sources in his Department of Enterprise said that all three candidates were asked similar questions about their family situation that the Workplace Relations Commission said it was only the woman who was asked about her family.
Mr Halligan’s difficulties were exacerbated when his brother Brendan went on his local radio station, WLR’s Deise Today programme, to defend him.
Brendan Halligan first said his brother didn’t know he was giving the interview, and then ridiculed the fine and asked how deserving the woman was of the €7,500 award. He said: ‘The WRC decided, in their wisdom, to make an award of €7,500 to this lady for, and I’m paraphrasing here, slightly, for the stress and trauma associated with the three questions that John asked. Now I’m not making any comments about the lady in question whatsoever, she was perfectly entitled to bring a case if she felt that there was a case to be had. But I want to talk about a sense of perspective here, and balance in everything, and I have spent all of my adult life working with people who are marginalised and disadvantaged.
‘What I call distress and trauma is a woman or a girl who’s been raped and she makes a decision that she wants to go and have an abortion, and she can’t do that because the supports are not in this country to do it.
‘What I consider stress and trauma is somebody that, after being violated or abused and doesn’t have the supports there. Now those are my experiences and I’m not diminishing this woman’s experiences.’ He said he did not believe the woman should have been awarded the sum and added that there was a ‘claims culture in this country’.
He said: ‘My understanding is, I don’t know whether it’s true or not that John has offered to pay that money out of his own pocket. I’m saying that he shouldn’t pay it. The workplace Relations Commission was fundamentally wrong in making that sort of payment for that sort of discrimination; again he was wrong to ask those questions.’
Sources have said Mr Halligan’s position in Government is, so far, safe, and Leo Varadkar last night said, in a speech in Cavan, that Fine Gael is committed to its arrangement with the Independent Alliance ministers.
He said that a major strength for his party was how well it is working with the Independent Alliance and independent ministers.
He said: ‘Without them, we could not achieve what we have achieved in the past year. I thank them for it and assure them of our commitment to making this Government work and making it last.’
In his own interview with Seán O’Rourke yesterday, Mr Halligan admitted he had made a serious error, saying: ‘I acknowledge that I was wrong and I apologise for that. I am disappointed I asked that question. The question was asked unintentionally. I operate a family friendly environment in three of my offices. I allow my employers flexibility, that was the intention. My employees have 13 children between them.
‘I regret it, I had no mis-intention. As to why I asked the question, it was to give women who work and men, to give them the opportunity to help their kids. It was purely my intention to relax the interviewees. I’m not a professional interviewer.’
Meanwhile, a commission to examine the status of women in Ireland is to be announced by Fine Gael today. A 50-page document setting out the party’s plans for the coming years will specifically deal with the issue of gender inequality, sources said.
An insider said the document will suggest that a commission on the ‘status of women in Ireland’ will be set to up ‘to review what existing measures are in place to tackle gender inequality’.
Furthermore, there will be a suggestion that, from now on, all sports funding be split 50/50 for male sports and female sports.
The document will also commit to paid parental leave for the first time, a reform of social insurance, the creation of new town hubs, and new legislation to review the use of social media in courtrooms, something which was recently suggested by Fine Gael TD Josepha Madigan.
It is understood that Education Minister Richard Bruton was the steering force behind the document which will be unveiled this morning.
Comment – Page 14 jennifer.bray@dailymail.ie
‘Not a professional interviewer’