Naughten quit his ministerial role in terse, hand-written letter to Taoiseach
FORMER communications minster Denis Naughten formally resigned with a terse, one-line letter shortly before taking an apparent swipe at Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in the Dáil.
The hand-written letter reads: “Dear Taoiseach, Further to our discussion today I’m tendering my resignation as minister.”
Other correspondence show Mr Naughten subsequently lobbied Mr Varadkar on the future of the Rosalie Care Unit in his Roscommon constituency.
The letters were released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Mr Naughten said his resignation letter was delivered to Mr Varadkar before he publicly announced he was stepping down in the Dáil.
He had been caught up in a controversy over the contract for the National Broadband Plan (NBP) after it emerged he had meetings and dinners with David McCourt, the businessman leading the last remaining consortium in the bidding process.
A later report by the NBP independent auditor Peter Smyth cleared Mr Naughten and Mr McCourt of improperly affecting the State tender process for the giant infrastructure project.
Mr Smyth also found that Mr Naughten was correct to resign in order to insulate the process from “apparent bias”.
Announcing his resignation on October 11, Mr Naughten said that after discussions with Mr Varadkar it was clear the Taoiseach did not have confidence in him.
In a veiled swipe at Mr Varadkar, he also said: “If I was a cynic, which I’m not, I believe the outcome is more about opinion polls than telecoms poles.”
Later that month, the Independent TD wrote to Mr Varadkar raising concern about the future of the Rosalie Unit in Castlerea for people with dementia amid a HSE halt on new admissions.
He said there were commitments given in relation to the unit in 2015 and said “it is now imperative that the decision to wind down the service by stealth must be reversed”.
Mr Varadkar sent the letter to Minister for Older People Jim Daly, who he said would respond to Mr Naughten.
Mr Daly replied on December 21 saying that “no decision has yet been made by the HSE in relation to this unit”.
He said the outcome of an independent review of the unit is due this month.