Butler says UUP leader has not set ‘red lines’ over running of health department
Health Minister Robbie Butler has said UUP party leader Jon Burrows has set him “no red lines” over how he runs his department.
The UUP MLA said he is his “own man” as he outlined that “difficult choices still lie ahead” given the financial strain on Stormont departments.
Mr Butler was appointed to the post after former health minister Mike Nesbitt resigned amid a fallout with Mr Burrows over the proposed withdrawal of emergency general surgery from Causeway Hospital in Coleraine, Co Londonderry.
Mr Nesbitt said when he took up leadership of the health department his party leader imposed a “red line” in his opposition to Northern Ireland participating in a puberty blockers trial.
In his resignation letter, he said Mr Burrows had imposed a second red line over the proposed hospital reconfiguration plan.
The new health minister was questioned by Stormont’s health committee for the first time on Thursday.
Mr Butler said he expected “challenging and difficult questions” but that the health committee “has a very good reputation, that it is non-political, that it has the interests of the population of Northern Ireland at its heart”.
Committee chairman and Sinn Fein MLA Phillip McGuigan asked if they can “expect interference from the leader of your political party when you’re making decisions” and what Mr Butler would do if Mr Burrows gave him an “instruction that goes against clinical or medical advice”.
Mr Butler insisted his decisions will be “based on the expert clinical and user voices that I hear”.
“I reject in totality any intimation that there was anybody who whispered my ear or said there’d be a way that anything would be, that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said.
“I would hope, including yourself, you’ve spent enough time working with me, that whilst I might on the face of it look like a good guy and sound guy, I’m a man of integrity, and there’s things that just don’t happen in my sphere, whether that’s personal or professional, and I will be my own man.”
Mr McGuigan highlighted the comments of Mr Nesbitt saying he was given “two red lines” in relation to puberty blockers and Causeway Hospital.
Mr Butler said: “The matter between the previous health minister and the leader is a matter between the two, and whatever that way that conversation went, only those two people will know.
“I can unequivocally say there are no red lines.”