Health Minister's Former Election Media Campaign Manager At The Centre Of A Twitter Controversy

Reports today say a prominent doctor who is running to be the next chairperson of the Labour Party, has closed his Twitter account after a P.R. consultant, who claimed to be a “close confidante” of Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, told the doctor  his posts were undermining his reputation and clinical role.

Doctor Anthony O’Connor, a consultant gastroenterologist at Tallaght Hospital, has been critical of the Government response to Covid-19 and contributes to television and radio discussions on the pandemic.

According to Independent.ie  public relations consultant Conor Dempsey suggested to Dr O'Connor that people may see him “so stressed” on social media, that they “might be concerned” if they were referred to him for treatment.

Ten years ago Connor Dempsey who was a director of Slattery Communications at the time, ran Stephen Donnelly’s media campaign on a voluntary basis, when he ran as a first time candidate. But it raised eyebrows in a number of quarters, because the press releases were issued on Slattery Communications headed e-mails, implying that it was a paid for media campaign.