MINISTER FOR Health James Reilly has expressed confidence in his Minister of State Róisín Shortall after she declined to say the same of him.
A spokesman for the Minister said last night Dr Reilly “has confidence in his two Ministers of State, Róisín Shortall and Kathleen Lynch. Both junior Ministers are working very hard on their respective briefs and all three Ministers are working together on a range of issues related to reform of health services”.
In a radio interview yesterday, Ms Shortall repeatedly declined to express confidence in her senior Fine Gael colleague. She indicated there were policy, not personality, differences between them.
“We need to communicate better” on pressing problems in the health service, she said.
When asked if she had full confidence in Dr Reilly, the Labour Minister said: “We have a working relationship within the department. He has his areas of responsibility. I have my areas.”
Interviewed on Newstalk’s Breakfast programme, Ms Shortall, who has responsibility for primary care, repeatedly declined to express confidence in Dr Reilly.
Asked again by interviewer Chris Donoghue if she had “full faith” in the Minister, she said: “We need to work through the policy in relation to the future of the health service.”
“You’re not giving me a yes,” said Mr Donoghue.
“I said to you we need to work through the policy and we need to agree the policy,” replied Ms Shortall.
Differences between the two Ministers reached a low point last week when Ms Shortall said she had heard of the intended resignation of Health Service Executive chief Cathal Magee from the media. It emerged Dr Reilly had not informed the Cabinet or his Ministers of State of the decision.
Ms Shortall said of her relationship with Dr Reilly: “We deal with each other on a professional level” in relation to policy “and that’s what I’m concerned about”.
She said the issue was not about personality. “I think that’s a kind of lazy way of addressing the issue,” she said, adding there were “a number of policy issues that we need to work through”.
Later Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte said the Government was unified in its focus on economic recovery and “any personality squabbles are not going to deter from the main focus”. There “are always different personalities who rub up against each other. Nothing surprising about that.”
Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher called for clarity on the policy differences between the two Ministers. The “growing gulf” between them was “extremely worrying, given the chaos in the health service at the moment”, he said.
