FG stands by Harris af ter ex-HSE chief ’s ‘scared little boy’ dig
‘Totally out of order’ ‘Pretty rich coming from O’Brien’
FINE Gael has rushed to the defence of Health Minister Simon Harris following a colourfully worded and highly personalised attack on him by former HSE chief, Tony O’Brien.
Mr O’Brien, who stepped down from his role as the director general of the HSE in the wake of the CervicalCheck scandal, has described the Health Minister as being weak and someone who behaved like a ‘frightened little boy’ during the controversy.
He also accused Minister Harris of being obsessed with the media and as someone who ‘runs scared of headlines’, during a lengthy and explosive interview in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post.
Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan leaped to the defence of his Cabinet colleague yesterday:
‘This is Tony O’Brien, head of the HSE, who stepped down following a pretty rapid fall from grace himself when he admitted that his own HSE, which he led, treated the tragedy of the cervical cancer issue as a trainwreck. They’re the words of Tony O’Brien himself,’ Mr Flanagan told RTÉ’s This Week programme. ‘I have no doubt, and I sit beside Simon Harris at Cabinet, that he is a very dynamic health minister and he’s very committed,’ he added.
A spokeswoman for Minister Harris yesterday said he ‘does not believe in engaging in the politics of personalised attacks’.
‘The CervicalCheck situation was a very difficult time for women in Ireland. They felt let down. The women were and are the minister’s priority,’ the spokeswoman continued.
Rival party members also criticised Mr O’Brien. Speaking to the media at the close of the Labour Party conference, leader Brendan Howlin described Mr O’Brien’s comments as unwelcome. He said: ‘I would be critical of the performance of many members of the current Government... But I don’t think it is a particularly welcome thing to see former civil servants, public servants, using that sort of language.’
Mr O’Brien dramatically resigned his post just weeks before his contract was due to expire during the fallout from the scandal on May 10. In the interview, Mr O’Brien also criticised the way in which Mr Harris handled the crisis and described his decision to offer another smear test to every woman in the country as a ‘panicked response’.
Mr O’Brien also talked about Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, a former health minister, and said their relationship had at times been ‘a bit crunchy’. But he praised him for what he said was his honesty and said that he doesn’t believe he is ‘spun’, but that he calls it ‘as he sees it’. Mr O’Brien also took issue with the treatment of witnesses before the Public Accounts Committee and said it could be ‘rude, aggressive and inhumane’. He went on to accuse Sinn Féin as having ‘effectively swapped the balaclava for parliamentary privilege’.
Party leader Mary Lou McDonald said on Twitter: ‘He is clearly licking his wounds and instead of addressing the issues at the core of accountability and governance of the HSE, he lashes out.’ Sinn Féin TD David Cullinane, who sits on the PAC, described his comments as being an ‘outburst’ and ‘outrageous’.
He added ‘Sinn Féin make no apology for holding senior officials to account’.