Taoiseach rejects 'absurd' claim US trip is waste of taxpayers' money

Simon Harris also defends decision to deploy his politically-appointed adviser into the Oval Office in Washington to take social media footage

Simon Harris meets Joe Biden at the White House.  Picture: Tasos Katopodis/Irish Government/PA

The Taoiseach has claimed it is "absurd" to suggest that his trip to Washington was a waste of taxpayers' money.

Simon Harris has also defended the decision to deploy one of his politically-appointed advisers into the Oval Office to take social media footage, stating: "Political advisers can also take videos."

It is understood that the White House gave sign-off to allow one photographer and one videographer to accompany the delegation into the meeting with President Biden, with a special adviser to the Taoiseach put down as the official videographer.

No media were permitted into the Oval Office.

When questioned on the matter, Mr Harris said the White House makes the rules. He added that he is not planning to use the footage, which has been uploaded to his social media, in any Fine Gael election campaign.

Mr Harris had been scheduled to attend a reception of 300 people in the Rose Garden during his trip, to mark 100 years of diplomatic relations between Ireland and the US, however this was postponed due to Hurricane Milton. A meeting between Mr Harris and President Biden did go ahead and lasted just under an hour.

'Find me one other European prime minister who doesn't want to spend nearly an hour talking to the president of the United States,' Simon Harris said. Picture: Tasos Katopodis/Irish Government/PA

Asked about criticisms of the scaled-back 48-hour visit and suggestions that it had not represented value for the taxpayer, Mr Harris said: "I think that's an absolutely absurd thing to say. What I'd say to them is find me one other European prime minister who doesn't want to spend nearly an hour talking to the president of the United States, whether it's in the Oval Office about the undocumented Irish; about the legacy act; about Gaza, the Middle East; about the safety of our peacekeepers."

Statutory inquiry

Turning to domestic issues, Mr Harris said he is not ruling out a statutory inquiry into the death of Aoife Johnston in University Hospital Limerick (UHL.) 

Ms Johnston, 16, from Co Clare, died on December 19, 2022, after suffering from meningitis-related sepsis, and was left for more than 16 hours without antibiotics.

The Taoiseach said he is willing to meet the family of Aoife Johnston, 16, who died in UHL in 2022.

The Taoiseach also said that he is willing to meet Ms Johnston's family, who are "grieving the loss of a beautiful daughter in the most horrific, unacceptable... in somewhat inexplicable circumstances", to discuss such an inquiry.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Mr Harris also hit out at religious orders, which he said have "got off the hook" in the past in relation to paying towards redress schemes.

Referring to a redress scheme for victims of sexual abuse in boarding and day schools run by Catholic religious institutions, Mr Harris said the attorney general has been asked to draft legal advice for Government on what mechanisms can be deployed.

"My first approach is we should ask people to do the right thing; that's not to suggest that we're naive in presuming they are going to do the right thing. If they don't do the right thing, we need to legislate to make sure that they do," he said.

Mr Harris said he has spoken with Labour leader Ivana Bacik, who has put forward legislation on the matter, and believes there is "consensus" within the Dáil.

"In the past they got off the hook, and they're not going to this time," he said. "They've been issuing statements talking about how sorry they are, but we'll decide how sincere that sorrow is, depending on what they do next."