Kenny says Minister told him debt will be paid

THE TAOISEACH has said that the Minister for Health has told him that an outstanding business debt will be paid.

Enda Kenny also said that he had spoken to Dr James Reilly yesterday morning and he had no difficulty at all about making a statement to the House when he returned to Dublin from EU business in Cyprus.

“This matter has been in the media previously,” said Mr Kenny.

The Taoiseach was replying to Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams who said the Minister was officially named on the debt defaulters’ list in Stubbs Gazette for failing to pay debts resulting from a business deal involving a private nursing home in Tipperary.

He urged the Taoiseach to confirm that Dr Reilly would make a Dáil statement today.

“The Minister, who has taken decisions to close 296 public nursing home beds from January until May, has a commercial interest in a private nursing home,” Mr Adams added.

Mr Kenny said that Mr Adams and his party “could, I am sure, speak very well on issues of debt and debt recovery and repayment”. He added that the judgment had been properly registered, but that did not mean the money involved was not to be paid by both recoursed and non-recoursed investors.

“The Minister for Health has assured me that his affairs, insofar as his business interests are concerned, are entirely in order and in compliance with the code of conduct for officeholders,” Mr Kenny added.

The Taoiseach said the Minister had already given power of attorney, in proper circumstances, to have his interest in the matter handled in an unfettered way and at arm’s length. Dr Reilly, he said, was a minority investor in the matter and had no control or direction over the process.

Mr Adams said he was not making a judgment on Dr Reilly, adding that he was simply asking him to make a statement to the Dáil.

He understood that the Minister and others owed €1.9 million as part of the deal. Furthermore, he understood it was borrowed from the Bank of Ireland, which had been bailed out.

Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett told Mr Adams it was not a practice or custom to deal with private matters relating to individual members of the House.

It had not been a practice allowed by his predecessors to permit the questioning of legitimate transactions by individual members, unless there were serious grounds for doing so.

It would be wise, he added, to allow the Minister make a statement to clarify outstanding issues.

Mr Adams said another issue of concern was that one of the Minister’s business partners was former Fine Gael councillor Anne Devitt, who was found by the Mahon tribunal to have behaved inappropriately relating to planning matters.