Labour leader Alan Kelly has said Stephen Donnelly’s priorities “need a health check”, after it emerged the health minister queried why tweets from his department didn’t mention his name.
According to internal department records, obtained by the Irish Times, an analysis of the Department of Health’s Twitter feed was completed for Minister Donnelly in mid-January.
When quizzed on Monday, Mr Donnelly said he believed it was “a piece of work that one of the team was looking at”.
Speaking to RTE’s Morning Ireland, Minister Donnelly said he hadn’t read the story and he’d have to “take a look at” it himself.
Reacting to the story, Labour leader and health spokesman for the party Alan Kelly tweeted: “Stephen Donnelly’s priorities need a health check, seems like the Minister has had a bad case of ‘Ego-itis’.
“Symptoms may include distraction from important tasks and lack of prioritisation.”
The documents revealed the analysis carried out by the Department of Health made comparisons to Minister Simon Harris’ Department of Further and Higher Education and former health minister.
Fine Gael’s Simon Harris and Fianna Fáil’s Stephen Donnelly are from the same constituency in Co Wicklow.
Minister Harris is very active on social media and uploads live videos, speaking to his thousands of followers nearly every evening on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram.
