Did anyone see Simon Harris's treatment of the carer who approached him in Co. Cork today? Despicable, condescending behaviour.

[Imperiallanger]

I'll try link. It's on RTEs Facebook page & the comments match his behaviour. The poor woman was visibly upset.

It's probably unfair to say that she continued to insult him personally. She did insult him when he returned the second time but that was the only time she insulted him. Not excusing it, but I would have more sympathy for her. At that point he had tried to tell her that what she was saying wasn't true, even though she knew it was true. He had walked away from her as she tried to advocate for a sector that has been under significant pressure for many years while FG were in Government and during Simon Harris's tenure as MoH.
She might not have been the most measured in her delivery but Simon has spent years on the campaign trail and should have been better able to handle a relatively minor verbal exchange with this woman. She wasn't aggressive, she was nervous and frustrated.
I can guarantee that nurses who work on the frontline deal with far worse than that and don't have the luxury of walking away.

Was it just my observation or did he take her hand? She didn't offer her hand to him? Then she said "go on keep shaking hands".
Also @Onehorsetown I'll reiterate my annoyance that not one member of the Fine Gael entourage stayed with her to discuss her concerns further. Had the local candidate stayed & chatted with her rather than turning his back on her following Harris the optics would have been better.

I think he was conscious of the camera and panicked a bit. I don't think he is the worst person really, but he just needed to listen and empathise, instead of contradicting her, it would have been a much better approach.
He just came across as arrogant.

I don't think it's black and white, I don't think either of them came across at their best.
I think he was a bit short with her and I think she could have gotten her point across more respectfully.
Some opposition have jumped on this and used it as an excuse to label him. But he has made it very clear, even during this interaction, that disability is a very important issue for him and in fairness he does have a lot of plans to help the sector.
I think with hindsight a lot of us can look back on something we did when we were tired or stressed that we might have done better.

The previous poster said he didn't walk away until after she made the personal comment. That's clearly not true, hence my post.

https://x.com/thejournal_ie/status/1861508571407540557?t=ByV3CuZCPwNe5Z6z8kBxWg&s=19

FG going hard after the lady who made the remarks in the shop.

Omg 😲 the poor girl. That is batshit crazy!

I’m no fan of Simon Harris what so ever, but really your harping on about it is getting ridiculous and frankly boring, his poor management of the interaction is not going to get Aontu into power no matter how much you try to spin this.

I didn't post that journal link but I do feel it's very unfair to the poor woman.