Stephen Donnelly has admitted that he believes the Government 'has a problem' with leaks as he defended his record as Minister for Health during a spiky interview on RTE Prime Time.
The Fianna Fáil Minister was brought on to discuss the resignation of two of the leading members of Sláintecare, insisting that the plan to regionalise the HSE was still on track.
When asked by host Miriam O'Callaghan about the resignations of Laura Magahy and Professor Tom Keane, Mr Donnelly said: "They were frustrated at the lack of pace of some reforms. At the centre of that was regionalisation and why it was paused.
"It was the pandemic is why we paused regionalisation. The big frustration was regionalisation. In the middle of the pandemic, that's not when you reorganise the health service.
"It was really important for me that Paul Reid and his team were focused on Covid and the vaccine programme. What I didn't want was a situation where we had ruthless focus on the vaccine programme while telling them that we would be changing things around with their job."
However, towards the end of the chat, Miriam turned to the Simon Coveney saga, which saw the top Minister survive a vote of no confidence on Wednesday evening.
Asked by the host if he believed there was a problem in the Government with the amount of information that has been leaked recently, Mr Donnelly was blunt in his response.
"I think there is a problem in this Government in terms of the amount of leaks out of it. It's not good practice, it makes our job very difficult and I would like to see it stop.
"I think that ultimately, it's a matter for the Taoiseach, he has talked about how this needs to stop. A lot of time has been spent on the Simon Coveney issue and we have pressing things to do. I do think there is a problem with leaking in Cabinet. I very much would like to see it stop."
Mr Donnelly closed the interview with his belief that the Government "has been doing well" in light of recent scandals.
