Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The central issue here involved the content of what the tweet was about, namely, a political donation. My understanding is that the Minister personally canvassed for the successful candidate in the presidential election. I do not know whether he signed the candidate's nomination forms. I understand that he personally made a financial donation to the successful candidate. The Minister had a personal, financial, vested interest in the outcome of the election campaign. I thought the least which would have happened, given the Minister came before the House today, was that he would have declared his personal interest in this campaign, in view of the fact that we are talking about a political donation. I was surprised he came before the House to take this matter when a Minister of State took the earlier matters.

I genuinely believe that the proper procedure here would be to have a Minister other than Deputy Rabbitte, and possibly other than a Labour Party Minister, who made a financial contribution to the campaign of one of the candidates to deal with this specific, narrow issue. I am not talking about RTE which does a great job, but to this specific, narrow issue. In the interests of impartiality and fairness, I think the Minister should personally step aside from dealing with this particular issue because of his declared financial interest in the election campaign and his contribution. The good name and reputation of RTE are at stake. In the interests of RTE, please have some other Minister who is not personally compromised or conflicted in relation to the particular campaign and the outcome of the election result deal with this particular issue from now on.

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