"I haven't seen the article."
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said that he has not seen an article which claims he queried why he wasn't being mentioned in tweets from the Department of Health Twitter account.
Donnelly said the query was a piece of work carried out by a member of his staff but as he had not read the article, he'd need to "take a look" before he could comment.
His comments are in relation to a report in the
Irish Times that said the Minister for Health queried why he was not being mentioned in tweets posted on the Department of Health’s Twitter feed.
The report stated that an analysis of the department's Twitter feed was completed by the Minister in January and showed no references were made to Donnelly on the account, while the tweets from the Department of Further and Higher Education’s Twitter feed showed its Minister, Simon Harris, had been mentioned 10 times.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland on Monday morning, Donnelly told Mary Wilson he had not seen the article.
Donnelly: "I believe it was a piece of work that one of the team was looking at Mary. I haven't seen the article but I believe it was one piece of work that somebody was looking at in a, you know..."
Wilson: "The article says it was an analysis that you looked for and on your behalf the Secretary General of your department was contacting your publicity, your communications people saying, 'We need to discuss this, there's no reference to the minister as you can see'. Was it an analysis that you wanted?"
Donnelly: "No, like I say Mary, I haven't seen the article. It's a piece of work that somebody did within the departments and it came up presumably in an FOI request. I'd have to take a look."
https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1381511064169426946?s=08
