{"id":405386,"date":"2026-04-18T16:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T16:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/405386\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T16:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T16:28:07","slug":"ivana-bacik-would-not-have-made-viktor-orban-jibe-if-i-was-a-woman-says-patrick-odonovan-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/405386\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivana Bacik would not have made Viktor Orb\u00e1n jibe \u2018if I was a woman\u2019, says Patrick O\u2019Donovan \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Communications Patrick O\u2019Donovan<\/a> has accused Labour<\/a> leader Ivana Bacik<\/a> of low political tactics by comparing him to Hungary\u2019s authoritarian outgoing prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was Patricia O\u2019Donovan, a woman, I don\u2019t think she\u2019d have said it. And I think she should reflect on it,\u201d O\u2019Donovan said on Saturday.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan was at the centre of controversy this week when he suggested that media coverage of the fuel protests<\/a> had been \u201clopsided\u201d and that a formal review may be needed.<\/p>\n

His comments promoted Bacik to remark in the D\u00e1il: \u201cGoodbye Viktor Orb\u00e1n, hello Patrick O\u2019Donovan.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, O\u2019Donovan said he \u201cmade a hames\u201d of what he was trying to say and should have phrased his comments differently. <\/p>\n

Addressing the matter further on Saturday at the launch of the National Archives 1926 census exhibition<\/a>, he said: \u201cUnfortunately, we live in an age of political pile-on. The difference is when people make mistakes and own it. I explained yesterday the mistake that I made, certainly around the vocabulary that I used.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan said Bacik\u2019s comments \u201cdidn\u2019t go down well\u201d with him and his family and he said the Labour leader \u201cknows that I\u2019m not of that kind of persuasion\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe might have got a bit of a laugh from the few Labour TDs that she had around her but \u2026 in an age of social media pile-ons, and when people have enough of grief in politics, it\u2019s people like that, and it\u2019s commentary like that, that add to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his initial comments, the Fine Gael<\/a> minister had told Tipp FM he would be \u201cexamining\u201d coverage of the blockades \u201cfrom a balance point of view\u201d. He suggested there had been insufficient coverage of people who disagreed with protesters\u2019 methods and said RT\u00c9<\/a>\u2019s coverage of the blockade at Whitegate fuel refinery, Cork, was \u201calmost like a flare\u201d in drawing attention to it.<\/p>\n

The National Union of Journalists<\/a> described the comments as \u201csinister and deeply disturbing\u201d, while T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a>, the Fine Gael leader, said he believed there was \u201cno need for any sort of formal review\u201d.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, O\u2019Donovan said he could have used \u201ca better formula of words\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Communications Patrick O\u2019Donovan has accused Labour leader Ivana Bacik of low political tactics by comparing him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3775,171749,61,60,3657,6189,43,6232,6085,70,1841],"class_list":{"0":"post-405386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-fine-gael","9":"tag-fuel-protests","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-ivana-bacik","13":"tag-labour-party","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-patrick-o-donovan","16":"tag-rte","17":"tag-simon-harris","18":"tag-viktor-orban"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}