Taoiseach Simon Harris has said he was focusing on outlining his election pitch to help people with disabilities instead of dwelling on his encounter with a care worker in Cork.
Mr Harris spoke to Charlotte Fallon, a disability worker with St Joseph’s Foundation, after a clip of an exchange between them on Friday went viral.
RTÉ footage posted to the social media site X shows Mr Harris on a canvass in Kanturk when Ms Fallon tells the Taoiseach carers “were ignored” and the Government has “done nothing for us”.
Mr Harris responds by saying: “No, not at all”, and “that’s not true”, several times before shaking her hand.
When asked whether he thought the clip would overshadow the Fine Gael campaign, Mr Harris said people would vote for the best plan on offer.
“I hope people like to see humility in politics and if you get something wrong, you come out and you own it,” he said.
“I’m human, I make mistakes,” Simon Harris said.
“But you know what I do when I make a mistake? I own it.
“There’s been far too many occasions during general elections in this country and abroad where something goes wrong on the campaign trail and people dilly dally and debate for days.
“You know what? I put my hands up.
“I got it completely wrong. I was wrong, simple as. Spoke to Charlotte.
“But much more importantly to me now, in my engagement with Charlotte and my engagement with people right across this country, it’s what I’m going to do for people with disabilities.”
Asked about the encounter, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said that Ms Fallon had spoken “truth to power”.
“The unfortunate thing is, in this case, power didn’t want to hear the truth, and that’s hugely, hugely problematic.
“You hear all sorts of things out on the campaign trail, and I think a wise leader, a person who would wish to be taoiseach, listens and accepts that when somebody is telling you that your policies are hurting, hurting them, hurting the people that they represent and work for – you should hear that lesson.
“If you’re not hearing that lesson, you’re not going to change your approach and in that meeting that happened in Kanturk, I think people just got a glimpse of actually what it would mean for Fine Gael to be back in government with Fianna Fail, because that’s their approach.
“They don’t listen, they don’t respond, and they seem to think, astonishingly, that people ought to be grateful for their efforts, rather than hearing, reflecting and changing.”
