Concerns about Minister Stephen Donnelly run deep
Concerns about the performance of the Health Minister go far beyond the events of the past week, writes Hugh O’Connell
AT 5.59pm last Wednesday, five minutes after news of five new Covid deaths and 611 new cases were announced, Stephen Donnelly tweeted a video of his achievements in his first 100 days as Health Minister. “He’s only getting started,” the narrator concluded. After three months in Miesian Plaza, the verdict from colleagues across Government and in Leinster House is not as positive.
Interviews with over a dozen ministers, TDs and officials, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, paint a picture of a Health Minister who is overly sensitive to criticism, lacking in empathy, and whose condescending approach has alienated and annoyed party and Coalition colleagues, Department officials and Opposition TDs.
The minister’s difficulties were exacerbated last week when the CMO, Dr Tony Holohan, revealed he had kept Donnelly informed of concerns about the rising number of Covid-19 cases last weekend. Donnelly has become so embattled that on Thursday — 103 days into the coalition’s existence — Taoiseach Micheál Martin had to state full confidence in his Health Minister. This came hours before Donnelly was before the Dáil answering questions about his conversations with the CMO last weekend.
SHORTCOMINGS
The concerns about Donnelly go beyond last week’s events or media outings that have attracted ridicule. Donnelly’s Twitter video — paid for by Fianna Fáil and posted, it is understood, without the minister’s knowledge — may have been about lauding his achievements, but it also inadvertently highlighted shortcomings. The declaration that he had brought in legislation to extend free GP care for all school children neglected to mention that plans to extend the measure to under-8s have been indefinitely delayed.
So concerned was Tánaiste Leo Varadkar about this that he raised it at Cabinet last month, prompting an uneasy exchange with Donnelly over whether or not funding was already set aside for the measure. Meanwhile, children under eight will be waiting until at least next year.
The video also boasted of having increased access to medical cards for over-70s, but it didn’t say this was supposed to happen in July — but didn’t, because Donnelly didn’t sign the regulations. The escalating cost of Covid was blamed, but with pressure mounting from Fianna Fáil TDs last month, it is now being implemented from next month. “I worked for about two months to get that memo to Cabinet,” Donnelly told the Sunday Independent yesterday afternoon. “It was a good news story this week.”
But in announcing it, Donnelly managed to alienate one of his own junior ministers, sources said. Having been inundated with queries in recent weeks, Minister of State for Older People Mary Butler lobbied hard to advance the measure, which benefits around 56,000 over-70s. But Donnelly made no reference to his colleague when he announced it on Tuesday.
“His video is all about him, all he did. There are three other juniors in his department… She [Butler] worked hard on the medical card bit of it and it was totally overshadowed,” said a Fianna Fáil minister.
Insiders say relations between Butler and Donnelly are strained. Butler, her allies say, felt excluded from the deliberations leading up to the launch of a report on Covid-19 in nursing homes on August 20.
Last month, while Donnelly was restricting his movements at home in Wicklow following his high-profile Covid scare, Butler represented him at the HSE’s Winter Plan launch and frequently takes commencement matters on his behalf in the Seanad. But there is little thanks or communication from the senior minister. “She has a huge amount of knowledge and was Opposition spokesperson on older people for four years,” said one source. “She could be included more and it’s not happening… Mary is totally frustrated by that.”
Butler did not respond to calls this weekend. Donnelly would not comment on the matter yesterday. His spokesperson said he meets regularly with junior ministers and “he does not intend to respond to anonymous sources or hearsay”.
Frustration with Donnelly is felt across Fianna Fáil. Three parliamentary party members separately identified a lack of “bedside manner”.
“Stephen is incredibly intelligent and very bright but lacks emotional intelligence at times. He lacks bedside manner,” said one.
Another, who is a junior minister, said: “He’s kind of an academic in his demeanour, he’d be a perfect member of Nphet — but he’s not a normal politician.”
Others are more scathing. “He has had a few nasty exchanges with backbenchers and he doesn’t hold them in much esteem,” said one TD. “I have found him to be extremely condescending.”
In response to this and other criticism, Donnelly’s spokesperson said: “The Minister does not intend to respond to anonymous sources.”
When Labour TD Duncan Smith referred to the events of last weekend as an “absolute calamity” in the Dáil on Thursday, Donnelly told him to be careful with words. “The way he commented on my use of language was patronising and an attempt to distract from the substance of the issue,” Smith later said.
Smith’s colleague Aodhán Ó Ríordaín recalled a recent conversation with Donnelly about drugs policy that left him “disappointed about his lack of knowledge” on the issue. “I didn’t get the sense that he was going to take a risk on it,” the Labour TD said.
CRITICISM
Some Fianna Fáil backbenchers have a more positive view of Donnelly, saying he is approachable and responsive to constituency queries. But, there is also a view that Donnelly is overly sensitive to criticism in the media. Late one night in August, Senator Malcolm Byrne took a call from an unhappy Donnelly who wanted him to delete a tweet he had posted stating that up to 50 people were, at that point in time, allowed at some indoor cultural events. The Minister claimed the tweet was incorrect.
But Byrne, who had been inundated with queries from the sector that day, explained to Donnelly that he had gotten clarity from the Department of Arts as well as the Taoiseach’s senior aides. Not only that, shortly before Donnelly rang, Byrne had spoken to Micheál Martin directly.
The Minister, who had earlier publicly — and incorrectly — stated that only six people were allowed at such events, was the following day forced to back down. Donnelly’s allies say he took the hit for a mistake by the Department of Arts.
In another incident, Donnelly rang party colleague James Lawless after the Kildare North TD made a brief appearance on RTÉ’s Six One News discussing the end of the Kildare lockdown. Lawless had suggested changes in how future local lockdowns are administered, but Donnelly told him “Jesus, that was not helpful”. Colleagues say Lawless was and still is furious about the call, believing he had managed much of the local fallout for Fianna Fáil from the Kildare lockdown. Donnelly’s recollection of the phone call is that it was a positive one.
In the Department of Health, senior officials do not hold Donnelly in high regard. Some have complained privately that he is rude, speaks at them and doesn’t listen. “He rubs people up the wrong way, he has a particular way of superiority,” said one Department source. “The officials would like to feel they are listened to and not spoken to.”
Others working in the Department say significant staffing changes have been made on the sixth floor, where Donnelly is based. “He wasn’t happy with what’s around him,” a second source said.
In the last two weeks, Donnelly’s private secretary — a gatekeeper of a minister’s diary and correspondence — was replaced. Two sources said Donnelly didn’t speak to the individual before they were moved elsewhere in the Department — though this is disputed by others. “There was a compatibility issue,” the one source said. “It was the talk of the place.” A spokesperson for Donnelly said: “The Minister has no role in staffing or in HR at the Department for Health. That is a matter for the civil service.”
Some in Fianna Fáil believe Donnelly could be a transformative Health Minister if given the chance, pointing to his commitment to implementing Sláintecare and the unprecedented €600m he secured for the HSE winter plan. All that is more challenging in a pandemic.
Donnelly’s government colleagues are concerned he did not sound alarm bells once the returning CMO texted him last Saturday to say he was calling an emergency Nphet meeting to discuss rising case numbers. “It does suggest at best a hands-off approach,” a Cabinet source said. “If Micheál was alerted to the importance of the meeting... he would have been in the car from Cork to Dublin.”
Donnelly’s spokesperson said: “Of course the minister and his senior government colleagues appreciate the gravity of Covid. They are managing the impact every day. The health minister, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste were all aware on Saturday that a meeting of Nphet had been called for the following day. On Sunday, ahead of the Nphet meeting, the CMO advised the Minister that Level 4 might be considered. The Minister immediately informed the Taoiseach. The Tánaiste’s office was also informed.”
The Minister’s spokesperson further added: “For the avoidance of doubt, the Minister would like to make it clear that he has no intention of trying to muzzle Nphet. Nphet is an advisory body and it is important that Nphet is allowed to do its job without political interference.”
They also said that Donnelly believes whoever leaked Nphet’s Level 5 recommendation last weekend “showed blatant disregard for public health”. Dr Holohan expressed a not dissimilar view on Wednesday.
DIVISIONS
Donnelly and Holohan must now establish a strong working relationship to avoid the sort of damaging divisions that emerged this week. This will be more difficult as public health’s rising concern about the virus clashes with government fears about the societal and economic impacts of lockdown. Communication is key, according to one official involved in the early response to the pandemic. Back then, the official explained, the
CMO “briefed before and after every Nphet meeting”. They added: “You knew what the craic was and you could socialise it with Taoiseach’s and then he’d [Holohan] come with the proposals after every one and it all kicked in from there. Where Stephen and Co seem to be in trouble is that they get the recommendations and next thing it is at Cabinet.”
One example of this was when Donnelly brought proposals to Cabinet in late August to make it a criminal offence to have more than six people in a person’s home. The move stunned ministers and officials, with one saying it was “utterly bizarre” that the proposal had not received prior approval from the Taoiseach’s office. Justice Minister Helen McEntee later told journalists they were “extreme” after the Cabinet had vetoed them. Donnelly’s spokesperson said the regulations were drawn up in conjunction with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to the Government after a Government decision in early August on foot of Nphet advice.
Questions are also being asked at a senior Government level as to why Donnelly has still not ensured deals are in place with private hospitals for extra capacity in the event of a second surge. The previous takeover in the spring lapsed in June. The Department of Health said: “The HSE is currently in negotiations with private hospitals regarding the provision of capacity in the event of a second surge.” However, a source in the private hospital sector said there was no contact on the issue for eight weeks. “If this thing goes south in the next few weeks, people are going to be asking: ‘Where’s the deal with the private hospitals,’” a government source said.
There is some sympathy for Donnelly. “I think he’s probably more academic, he means well but he doesn’t realise what a treacherous swamp Health is,” said one Fine Gael TD privately. “The Minister for Health carries the s*** for everything. I haunt him with PQs, but it’s a difficult job. I don’t dislike him.”
But the desire for him to succeed comes with a warning. Fine Gael TD Colm Burke said: “Every contract you’re offered has a six-month probationary period — he has another three months. I don’t need to be driving division now — come back to me in three months’ time. I might have a different view.”
‘I found him to be extremely condescending’
‘It does suggest at best a handsoff approach’