Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness has said he owes Stephen Donnelly no apology after he presented the Health Minister with a child’s soother at a party meeting.

The Carlow-Kilkenny TD said he handed his party colleague the pacifier to soothe things over, as the pairs very public spat continues.

Deputy McGuinness has criticised Minister Donnelly over the appointment of Robert Watt as Secretary General of the Department of Health on €300,000 salary.

He has also questioned why the pair travelled to on conference in Dubai in January – while their department was battling several controversies.

He handed him the soother after Minister Donnelly told a national radio programme he would take “no lectures” from his party colleague – and brought up a 15-year-old controversy about Deputy McGuinness asking to bring his wife with him on a trade mission while junior minister.

On The Pat Kenny Show this morning, Deputy McGuinness said he was just trying to be funny by handing the minister a soother.

“I spoke to Stephen Donnelly, given the difficulties we have had and the exchanges we have had, and as a point of humour, I offered him a soother to see if that might calm matters between us," he said.

“I’m afraid my attempt at humour may not have worked.”

Fianna Fail John McGuinness arriving at Leinster House in April 2020. Picture by: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie

He said the incident was seen by several other Fianna Fáil members who “took it with a degree of humour” – but insisted he was not trying to humiliate the minister.

“I haven’t spoken to Stephen since and I don’t think I owe him an apology,” he said.

“It is a humour thing. It is for him to decide whether it was or it wasn’t funny and you know, you move on.

“We are all hardened politicians in Leinster House. We conduct our business in a very serious way. There are times for humour and if the person can’t take it, well, I am afraid they’re not as thick skinned as I thought they might be.”

Public salary

Deputy McGuinness said both Minister Donnelly and Robert Watt had shown contempt for the Dáil by refusing to appear before the Finance Committee to account for Mr Watt’s salary.

“This was at the end of a very long exchange between both of us over a number of meetings and the content of that exchange or the reasons for the exchange were quite serious reasons,” he said.

“This is a very petty and minor matter in the context of what is happening in the country today and the whole issue arose out of the fact we were debating those serious issues in health – issues of accountability and transparency where neither man will attend the committee to provide us with the explanations that were needed.”

"Time to move on"

He said he would simply “put the matter to one side” if he had been the one handed the soother.

“It was a spat between two colleagues that needed to be diffused I thought and I thought that that humorous way of doing it might work,” he said.

“Look, it didn’t but that’s the way it goes. You make a call; you have a bit of fun. It didn’t work and you move on.”

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