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\nMichael Healy-Rae salutes the crowd outside Leinster House after resigning in the D\u00e1il<\/p>\n
Former minister Michael Healy-Rae has described the actions of his older brother, Danny, as akin to those of a “scud missile” blaming them for leading to his resignation as a junior minister.<\/p>\n
Speaking in a new documentary on the Healy-Rae dynasty, Michael Healy-Rae describes the events surrounding his surprise decision to surrender his ministerial position during the fuel protests in April.<\/p>\n
The former minister of state at the Department of Agriculture helped negotiate a deal with protesters but he resigned two days later following an explosive radio interview by his older brother Danny who called for both the Taoiseach and T\u00e1naiste to step down.<\/p>\n
In the film, Michael Healy-Rae says: “We always got on fine until this scud missile.<\/p>\n
“To say that I was surprised, that I was shocked, that I was upset. Of course I was, because number one, I would have liked to have known that he was going to go saying that. Number two, it meant that he was effectively breaking the deal because what we had agreed upon.<\/p>\n
“And that’s why that interview to me was so hurtful. It wasn’t like throwing a pebble into the water. It was like throwing a boulder into a lake and thinking that nothing was going to happen.<\/p>\n
“I mean, the ripples that came out of that and the consequences and the… and, like, the way I’ll word, it is the loss to Kerry.”<\/p>\n
‘The Healy-Raes: Blood, Sweat & Tears’ made by filmmaker Jerry Kennelly examines the Healy-Rae dynasty in Kerry and the fallout from the recent upheaval which appears to have caused a schism in the political machine.<\/p>\n
\nMichael Healy-Rae salutes the crowd outside Leinster House after resigning in the D\u00e1il<\/p>\n
In the documentary, Danny Healy-Rae also says that he was caught unaware by his younger brother’s resignation.<\/p>\n
“That was the first I knew about that. That’s the honest Gospel truth. It was a surprise to me because he had said only the night before he was going to vote for the Government and he was going to be voting for himself.”<\/p>\n
Wider members of the Healy-Rae also take part in the film with Danny\u2019s daughter Maura Healy-Rae saying she was shocked and disappointed by a later interview by Michael Healy-Rae explaining his decision.<\/p>\n
“The content of the interview was certainly shocking to me, and I would have to say, personally, very disappointing. Look, if you look at what he said in the D\u00e1il on the day that he resigned, and then look at what was said on Radio Kerry, or listen to what was said, there’s contradictions and there’s inconsistencies”<\/p>\n
On his resignation as a minister, Michael Healy-Rae says the two Healy-Raes came as a package deal for the Coalition.<\/p>\n
“It was an impossible situation. You were between a rock and a hard place because the deal was broken and it was entered into by two of us. It was broken by one of us and there was no other alternative then. It was… gone belly up, simple as that.”<\/p>\n
Danny Healy-Rae denies that there is “war” in the Healy-Rae camp but others indicate that a divide has opened up.<\/p>\n
Michael\u2019s son, Cllr Jackie Healy-Rae says: “We will have to make sure that whatever team is on the field is reliable, can be trusted by governments and can hold the line.<\/p>\n
“Us as a collective, and when I talk about the collective, I talk about the whole Healy-Raes, the five elected Healy-Raes, we’ll have to reflect on what has happened and see where things went wrong and ensure that it never happens again.”<\/p>\n
The Healy Raes Blood, Sweat & Tears will air on RT\u00c9 One and RT\u00c9 Player at 9.35pm on Wednesday 19 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former minister Michael Healy-Rae has described the actions of his older brother, Danny, as akin to those of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-595113","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\/595113","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=595113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}