Richard Bruton: I have great confidence in Maria Bailey
(though Cabinet colleagues are a good bit less generous)
‘I fully endorse her candidacy’
‘She is someone I strongly support’
ONE of Fine Gael’s most senior Government ministers has said he has ‘great confidence in’ Maria Bailey, the TD who caused widespread outrage by trying to sue a hotel after she fell off a swing while holding a bottle of beer.
Although Ms Bailey came under sustained public pressure – following which she gave up her court case and resigned from the chairs of three Dáil committees – Communications Minister Bruton says he backs her to stand for election on a Fine Gael ticket again. The long-serving minister heaped praise on the TD, describing her as someone he ‘strongly’ supports and adding: ‘I fully endorse her candidacy.’
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe this week would not be drawn on whether he would support her Dáil bid, saying: She ‘has been selected as a candidate and I don’t want to make any further comment’. Culture Minister Josepha Madigan, whose legal firm advised Ms Bailey when taking her now-withdrawn case, also refused to be drawn, saying: ‘Whether she runs or not, it’s up to her or Fine Gael.’
Ms Bailey hit headlines in May, when it emerged she was taking a personal injuries case against the Dean Hotel in Dublin for injuries after falling from a swing in 2015. She later dropped the case.
Her case became front-page news at a time when businesses being hit by the ‘compo culture’ were desperately trying to stay afloat and senior ministers were pledging to take action.
Following an internal Fine Gael investigation, Ms Bailey was demoted by the Taoiseach and she was removed as chair of the Oireachtas Housing committee.
She was also chairwoman of two other Oireachtas committees – the Select Committee on Members Interest (Dáil Éireann), which prepares guidelines for TDs and senators on how to comply with ethics Acts, and the Working Group of Committee Chairs.
She was not paid for either of these roles, and last week, she wrote a letter confirming she was resigning from both these positions.
However, Leo Varadkar did not remove the whip from the Dún Laoghaire TD, as he said he was ‘conscious of the devastating effect this saga has had on Ms Bailey and her family in particular’.
She remains on the ticket for Fine Gael to run for the party in the same constituency during the next general election.
Mr Bruton is widely regarded as one of Fine Gael’s most capable and experienced ministers, and yesterday, when asked if he supported Ms Bailey running for Fine Gael again in an election, he said: ‘Absolutely, I have great confidence in Maria Bailey, she may have made a mistake – what one of us has not made a mistake in our period?
‘She has admitted her mistake and she is offering herself for election by the electorate.
‘The electorate will make this decision. But Maria Bailey is someone that I strongly support to be on the ticket.
‘I believe that a lot of people understand that people in politics, as in other parts of life, can make mistakes in their career. And if we all were punished more than she’s already had to suffer for the mistakes we made, I think... many careers in politics would have been prematurely ended,’ Mr Bruton said.
‘So, you know, I think making a mistake and being bold enough to admit it, and to move on, is a strength in a character and I fully endorse her candidacy.’
At the height of the controversy, Business Minister Heather Humphreys said, in the Dáil, that ‘people need to have some common sense and to be responsible for their own personal safety’ when asked about soaring insurance premiums.
When asked yesterday if she thought Ms Bailey should remain on the ticket as a general election candidate for Fine Gael, Ms Humphreys said: ‘She has been nominated and she has been democratically nominated through the party to represent the Fine Gael party, along with two others on that ticket in the constituency.’
The Taoiseach previously released a statement on the internal party inquiry, which was carried out by barrister David Kennedy.
While this statement said the inquiry had found the claim was not ‘fraudulent’, it also stated Ms Bailey had signed an affidavit which ‘over-stated the impact of her injuries on her running’ and that she had made ‘numerous errors of judgment’.
And the Taoiseach said that he was still unable to reconcile her account to him of the affair with what she had said in other interviews.
‘Her approach jars with that of a Government taking action to reduce personal injury payments, claims and insurance costs to people and businesses,’ Mr Varadkar added.
Ms Bailey issued a separate statement, at the time, to state that she had accepted the decision and adding: ‘I regret very much that I took the case.’
She also said she had ‘initiated legal proceedings following an incident in 2015 in which I suffered painful injuries’, and had acted on legal advice throughout the process, but ‘ultimately decided to withdraw the proceedings in an attempt to end the extraordinary media and political pressure that arose from the publication of some details of the case’.