Labour joins SF in bid to oust Harris

But united front unlikely to breach FF defence

‘Made life very difficult for us’

THE Labour Party will today back Sinn Féin in its motion of no confidence in Health Minister Simon Harris over his handling of overspending on the National Children’s Hospital.

Other left-wing groups and Independents – including Dr Michael Harty, chairman of the Oireachtas Health Committee – will also back the motion.

But Mr Harris will receive the protection of Fianna Fáil, through abstention, likely ensuring his survival by a handful of votes (see panel).

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said: ‘There is widespread support for our motion, but matters rest with Fianna Fáil. It is on the Fianna Fáil watch that the minister failed so spectacularly. But if they continue to tolerate bad governance, then Simon Harris will remain in office.’

She dismissed Fianna Fáil criticism that the motion was opportunistic.

Ministers had already left the Government in its term of office, she said, and there could only be an election ‘if Leo Varadkar were to take a trip to the Phoenix Park, or Micheál Martin himself decides that the game is up’.

Labour leader Brendan Howlin said the Government now needed to come clean with the Dáil, having just published revised Health estimates, but without detail on where €35million in savings would be found this year.

‘We need a breakdown of every cent,’ he said, saying a lot of cat-scans and MRI machines were at issue, along with whole hospital units.

‘And this is just the first instalment – there will have to be money found each year until the €450million current excess cost is met,’ Mr Howlin added. For this reason, he said, his party would support the motion of no confidence.

He described it as ‘profoundly worrying’ that a hospital subcommittee last August had discussed imposing confidentiality on its members while drafting in public relations help to address the cost overrun, three days after Mr Harris had been told it was €391million. Mr Howlin said he had never heard of a nondisclosure agreement in government and that mention of it in the subcommittee minutes was ‘unprecedented’.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said yesterday that over €200million had already been invested in preparatory works. ‘It is not a case of do we plough ahead or not, it is looking at the best option,’ he said of the decision to go ahead with contractors BAM. The uncertainty caused by retendering, which BAM had suggested, ‘would ultimately have cost us more’, he claimed. But Mr Howlin said it may be that there is merit in re-tendering, and that there should at least be a debate on this.

Fianna Fáil said it would be an act of ‘national sabotage’ to back the no confidence motion in Mr Harris. Finance spokesman Michael McGrath said that while the Government had ‘made life very difficult for us’ on the hospital, his party would ensure stability through the Brexit process