‘Is it an acceptable way to behave?’
Opposition wants more answers from Leo
PRESSURE mounted on the Taoiseach last night, with Fianna Fáil insisting he needs to explain whether or not he believes Denis Naughten’s actions were an ‘acceptable way for his Cabinet to operate’.
Reacting to the storm that blew up in the Dáil yesterday surrounding Communications Minister Mr Naughten, Timmy Dooley TD called on Leo Varadkar to clarify and explain if he believes it is possible for Mr Naughten to have a ‘personal position and one as a ministerial position’.
However, Mr Dooley, Fianna Fáil’s communications spokesman, said his party’s position remains that it wants the Confidence and Supply arrangement maintained, as recently indicated by Micheál Martin. And he also said he wanted to be ‘fair to everybody’ and not to ‘escalate things here’.
However, he called on the Taoiseach to shed light on the situation, telling RTÉ’s Six One News yesterday: ‘The simple questions that I think were on everybody’s lips this morning: did a minister take a call from a PR official and did he give him a nod as to what he is going to do in the future?
‘And the Minister confirmed that to the House today. And when he was pushed on that he said, “Well, all I was doing was expressing a personal opinion”. If it was in relation to some other department, that’s fine. But the Minister has statutory responsibility for the Department of Communications.
‘He was expressing his opinion about a matter he has statutory responsibility for. So therefore I don’t know how you can divorce your personal position [or] opinion and your ministerial opinion.
‘Certainly the PR executive concerned, based on what we understand is in that email, he certainly didn’t see it as a personal opinion of Denis Naughten... So I fail to understand how you can have a personal position different to that of the ministerial position.’
Referring to the Taoiseach, Mr Dooley said: ‘He needs to come out and explain clearly why he accepts his Minister having a personal position which he is prepared to express freely with the PR consultant in a secretive manner, and failed to tell the Dáil three weeks later, or answer the same question in a public forum, and believe that that’s not sensitive information.
‘And I think we need to hear some more from the Taoiseach how he believes that that is acceptable way for his Cabinet to operate or to participate in debates like that.’
Mr Dooley added: ‘I don’t want to escalate things here. I think it is fair that the Minister and Taoiseach have time to have a conversation and understand what has happened and let them explain to the Dáil and to the public at large how they understand this situation evolved and, following that, that they believe that it was an appropriate conversation to take place or appropriate information to divulge in the way that it was divulged by Minister Naughten.’
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald last night said Mr Naughten was ‘given ample Dáil time to explain… he failed to do so’. She said it was ‘breathtaking that [the] Minister seems unable to grasp that he is in breach of his statutory duties’, and that the Taoiseach was now responsible to ensure Mr Naughten provides adequate answers.
She added: ‘The Minister’s answers in the Dáil today had more holes than a sieve. It is now the responsibility of the Taoiseach to ensure that the Minister is not allowed to shrug his shoulders and dodge his responsibility to provide these answers.’
Earlier in the House, during an exchange with Mr Naughten, Ms McDonald said that his insistence that this was a personal view was incorrect.
‘You are the Minister, you were speaking to someone acting on behalf of the party that wished to carry out this takeover – that is not a personal view,’ she said.
She called on Mr Naughten to accept it was ‘inappropriate and that as Minister that call should not have taken place’. She also branded his actions as being a ‘dereliction of duty’ in his role.
Solidarity TD Mick Barry told the House: ‘They say that when a person ascends into the Cabinet, it is time to start playing senior hurling, but I think when a Minister is being lobbied by big business… it is less a case of senior hurling but sumo wrestling in the mud, in reality, because this is very murky.’
Earlier, prior to Mr Naughten’s address to the Dáil, Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy had called on him to ‘recuse himself from any role in relation to media regulation in this country’.
Ms Murphy said the revelations suggested there was ‘a relationship between the Minister, his department, and powerful individuals involved in media operations in this country’.
‘I don’t want to escalate things’ ‘Sumo wrestling in the mud’