Cork's Colm Burke ‘absolutely delighted’ with new junior minister role

CORK’S newest junior minister told The Echo that there is a joke doing the rounds in the Department of Health that last year he had put down 994 questions to the department and his appointment there means their workload will now be reduced by 50%.

Fine Gael TD for Cork North Central Colm Burke said members of his family had travelled to Leinster House for his appointment as minister of state with special responsibility for public health, wellbeing and the National Drugs Strategy yesterday.

He said he was “absolutely delighted” at the appointment, and was looking forward to receiving a full briefing.

“The amount of people adversely affected by drug addiction is awful, and in a lot of cases people started off with it as an experimental scenario and it ends up where they become addicted,” he said.

“It has devastating effects on families, and we need to do a lot more in that whole area.

“The number of families I have come across now where they have older children of 19, 20, 21, and they’ve ended up in the hospital, and — in a few cases — ended up inside in St Michael’s [mental health centre] in the Mercy Hospital.”

He said the service offered in St Michael’s was excellent but, for many patients, their treatment did not end when they come out of hospital, something he described as very challenging for the patient themselves and for their immediate family.

“The whole public health area, I think there’s a number of areas that we need to deal with as regards getting information out there to people about how to better manage their health,” Mr Burke said.

He said in many diverse areas, from encouraging people to be more active to disseminating information about ventilation in the home, there was work to be done to raise awareness, work to which he was looking forward to doing.

“Life expectancy in Ireland is one of the highest in Europe, and let’s keep it that way,” he said.

“Let’s try and give assistance to people who need healthcare support.”

Background 

A solicitor by trade, Mr Burke has been active in public life for over four decades, first standing for election in Cork North Central in 1982.

He was unsuccessful in that attempt and again was not elected when he stood in the 1994 byelection in the constituency, following the death of Labour TD Gerry O’Sullivan.

Elected to Cork City Council for Cork City North West in 1999, and again in 2004, he served as Lord Mayor in 2003.

In 2007, he was co-opted to the European Parliament, replacing Simon Coveney in Ireland South, but he failed to be elected in the 2009 European election.

He was elected to the Seanad in 2011, he stood in the 2019 byelection in Cork North Central following the resignation of Fine Gael’s Dara Murphy, but he was eliminated in the ninth count.

In the 2020 general election, he was elected to the 33rd Dáil.

New junior ministers 

Yesterday, Neale Richmond was appointed the minister of state at the Department of Finance, which was left vacant on Tuesday after Jennifer Carroll MacNeill was appointed as the junior minister for European affairs.

Mr Richmond’s old role of minister of state at the Department of Enterprise has been given to first-time junior minister Emer Higgins.

Elsewhere, Kieran O’Donnell has been moved from junior minister at the Department of Housing to take on the minister of state for the Office of Public Works (OPW) role that became free when Patrick O’Donovan was promoted.

Mr O’Donnell’s old role will be taken on by Mayo TD Alan Dillon, who becomes a minister of state for the first time.

Meanwhile, Fine Gael has dropped the Gaeltacht portfolio following the promotion of Mr O’Donovan.

Mr O’Donovan, who held that junior minister role, was appointed as minister for further education on Tuesday.

Fianna Fáil TD Thomas Byrne added the job to his existing responsibilities as minister of state for sport and physical education. The Gaeltacht job is normally held by a minister who can speak Irish, as Mr Byrne does.

At a photo opportunity with the new junior ministers yesterday, Mr Harris said he had a “very good team”.

He added that his first full day as Taoiseach was a “busy one”. He chaired a Cabinet meeting in which the junior ministers were appointed and went on to establish Cabinet subcommittees, including a newly formed committee on disability, education, and children which was described by a spokesman as a “priority” for the new Taoiseach.

In addition, Coalition leaders agreed it was necessary to expand the remit of the Cabinet subcommittee on Ukraine to include migration and integration.

The Government also decided that the National Economic Dialogue will take place on May 27, which is an event seen as the first step of the annual budget process.

Mr Harris held “productive and engaging” phonecalls with British prime minister Rishi Sunak and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

There was consternation in the Dáil, however, when the Government’s chief whip said Mr Harris would be unavailable for Leaders’ Questions due to these scheduled calls.

Opposition parties criticised the Government for voting through changes to the order of business which meant that Leaders’ Questions was among the items dropped from the schedule.

Mr Harris also spoke to Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, and emphasised how important he sees his role as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement.