{"id":479656,"date":"2026-06-02T19:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T19:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/479656\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T19:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T19:16:09","slug":"extraordinary-interview-shows-creaks-in-healy-rae-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/479656\/","title":{"rendered":"Extraordinary interview shows creaks in Healy-Rae machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Independent TD Michael Healy-Rae told Radio Kerry this morning that he believes his brother Danny’s words cost him his job as a minister of state at the Department of Agriculture.<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael highlighted Danny’s comments in the aftermath of the fuel protests that Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael TDs should call for the removal of their party leaders, as a reason for the loss of his role in the department.<\/p>\n

Political Correspondent M\u00edche\u00e1l Lehane reflects on where the brother’s latest interview leaves the Healy-Rae political movement.<\/p>\n

Michael Healy-Rae’s interview with Jerry O’Sullivan on Radio Kerry this morning was extraordinary.<\/p>\n

Yes, he is rarely shy to speak, but typically he is guarded, albeit in a well-practiced, affable manner, when it comes to revealing how the Healy-Raes operate.<\/p>\n

Today was different.<\/p>\n

This was an honest dispatch from the inner workings of a political machine still creaking from the effects of a dramatic ministerial resignation and a severing of its ties with the Government.<\/p>\n

Michael Healy-Rae has cut a sore and wounded figure on his return to Leinster House after that shock decision in April.<\/p>\n

Or as they might say in south Kerry, he looked “very shook”.<\/p>\n

As he contemplated how to put things back together and return to the role of backbench TD, there was obviously a need for catharsis first.<\/p>\n

Now, he has levelled damning political charges against his brother to explain how events unfolded in the hours leading up to his resignation as a junior minister for agriculture.<\/p>\n

In the first draft of this piece of D\u00e1il history, Michael Healy-Rae had spoken about the sight of grown men crying over the cost of fuel in The Plough Bar in Milltown in mid Kerry.<\/p>\n

At the time he indicated that this made an exit from ministerial office inevitable.<\/p>\n

Watch: Moment Michael Healy-Rae tendered resignation as minister of state in D\u00e1il<\/p>\n

\n

But it seems the main fuse was set alight by Danny Healy-Rae’s comments that Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael TDs should pull the plug on their leaders.<\/p>\n

Those words all but ended the deal the Healy-Raes had negotiated with the Government parties early in 2025, Michael believes.<\/p>\n

Michael states that he did everything he could to repair the damage, but the knockout blow had been landed by Danny.<\/p>\n

It has left him with clear conclusions.<\/p>\n

Firstly, he feels that his departure from the Department of Agriculture will reduce Kerry’s influence in Government and the responsibility for this rests with his brother.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, he will never again walk side by side into an agreement with someone who does not have the “political determination” to see it through.<\/p>\n

Is this a polite way of effectively saying, I don’t trust you brother?<\/p>\n

For his part Danny Healy-Rae is not willing to comment directly on Michael’s hard-hitting interview, but his mood seems defiant.<\/p>\n

He is adamant that the show must go on and insists the collective Healy-Rae family continue to work at full tilt to serve their constituents.<\/p>\n

The reality is though that after today there is a splintering of that once famously disciplined collective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Independent TD Michael Healy-Rae told Radio Kerry this morning that he believes his brother Danny’s words cost him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-479656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479656","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=479656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}