Fine Gael ministers: Catherine Byrne should have been sacked in Eoghan Murphy row
Six Fine Gael ministers have said colleague Catherine Byrne should have been sacked over her part in a row with Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy.
Ahead of a motion of no confidence in Mr Murphy on Tuesday, Ms Byrne held last-minute talks with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to stop her voting against the Government.
She was criticised for not killing off reports that she was on the verge of voting against Mr Murphy, which caused major embarrassment to the Government.
Speaking to the Irish Examiner in the past 48 hours, ministers both at Cabinet and at junior level expressed their anger at Ms Byrne’s “hijacking” of Mr Murphy at a housing project event in July and also the events of this week.
“She should have been sacked for hijacking an event and personally attacking Murphy on a day when all the Opposition were in support of what was going on. Then she allowed the motion of no confidence blow-up,” said one Cabinet minister.
“It left a lot of people pissed off.”
“She was wrong to do that to Eoghan out at the constituency event,” said another minister.
Some ministers were slightly more sympathetic toward her, given the working-class makeup of her constituency in Dublin South Central, but said they were not impressed with how she handled herself this week.
“She is in a tough constituency and while there may have been some sympathy for her about her concerns in relation to the housing project, the stuff this week has highly annoyed a lot of her colleagues,” said another.
Asked for comment yesterday, Ms Byrne told the Irish Examiner: “Look, listen, I am not having this conversation with you. It’s over. You can write what you like about me.”
Asked about reports suggesting that she was about to break ranks, she said: “I don’t know where that came from — I don’t know where that came from.”
This paper has learnt that, during her meeting with the Taoiseach, he agreed to “help her out” in dealing with the fall-out of the new developments going ahead.
Sources have said the Taoiseach agreed to assist Ms Byrne in dealing with projected major increases in population in the Inchicore and Kilmainham areas once the St Michael’s development was finished.
However, it was made clear to Ms Byrne that there would be no changes to the proposed development and she would have to accept that.
During the no-confidence debate on Tuesday, having allowed the story circulate for more than 24 hours, Ms Byrne released a statement saying she was backing Mr Murphy. She said she had positive talks with the Taoiseach and Mr Murphy.
“I will be supporting my Government colleague this evening,” she said.
“I will continue to work constructively with all of my colleagues on the issues I have raised relating to housing and community development.”
