Simon Harris confirms he phoned Patrick O’Donovan before Minister fell ill

Tánaiste Simon Harris denied asking Patrick O’Donovan to resign some hours before the Minister for Culture fell ill at a EU conference in Limerick.

He confirmed he spoke to him by telephone but said it was a routine conversation and repeatedly said it was “bizarre” for anyone to suggest it had anything to do with O’Donovan’s position at the Cabinet.

In his first day back in Government after taking paternity leave, Harris spoke to the media on his way into Government Buildings on Wednesday. 

Asked if it was he who had had the conversation on October 13th, he said: “I did speak to him on Tuesday during that conference. Conversations that I have with my ministers are private. The way I’ve seen them characterised is inaccurate.”

In response to a follow up-question asking if he had asked O’Donovan to resign, Harris said it was a “bizarre” question. 

Harris, when asked if was nothing more than a routine phone call, replied “yes”. 

Asked to confirm it was not  the case as some reporting had suggested that the phone call and the subsequent health episode were connected, and O’Donovan’s was told his position was no longer tenable, Harris replied:

“Not only am I saying that’s not the case, Patrick O’Donovan will say that’s not the case. 

“That’s not the case. Read my statement. This what happens when there’s a political void. I was on paternity leave. With the greatest of respect to (the media) I had no intention of breaking my paternity leave to talk to any of you. I make no apology for that at all, and I like to think we come a little bit further as a country In terms of respecting that. 

“There was no silence. There was a man on paternity leave with their family.”

Harris repeated that he was looking forward to welcome O’Donovan, whom he characterised as a close friend and colleague, back to work.

“He’s somebody who I’ve appointed on two occasions to Cabinet.. He’s somebody doing a demanding and important job,” he said.“ I have frequent conversations with all of my ministers. It’d be bizarre if I didn’t. I talk to lots of colleagues on a daily basis, on a recurring basis, and those conversations, by their very nature, are private.”

He said he broke his paternity to issue a statement to support O’Donovan after the health episode and did it in consultation with his family. 

He said a secondary reason for issuing the statement was because of the anonymous briefing against O’Donovan from a Fine Gael Minister to a newspaper the previous weekend, which Harris said annoyed him.  

“I know that had caused hurt, and I wanted to vocalise that as well. I welcome the fact that our executive council has also endorsed my statement in relation to that.”

Elaborating a little later on the briefing, he said. “I do know those comments hurt him. They hurt him badly, and you don’t again need to take my word for that. I know that from my conversations with him, but I also know it from the conversations that indeed he had in Limerick with the media, and the conversations that I had with him over a sustained period of time.”