MINISTER FOR Health Mary Harney is contemplating legal action arising from personal comments made by journalist Nell McCafferty on Newstalk last week.
A spokesman for Ms Harney confirmed yesterday that the “matter is the hands of her lawyers”.
His comments were seen as confirmation that Ms Harney, who is in New Zealand, is actively considering suing the station and McCafferty for defamation.
McCafferty made the comments during Tom Dunne’s show on Thursday morning.
She later said she thought she was off-air at the time and only realised later that her comments were being broadcast live.
The station has issued two separate apologies, accepting that it had made an “abject failure” in allowing the allegations to be broadcast.
“Each and every one of these allegations were untrue and were known to be without truth when they were broadcast,” the station said in a statement.
