"Minister Harris has no balls. Harris has no balls. The Minister abdicates his duties."

So goes the opening of MEP Luke 'Ming' Flanagan's latest statement about the political situation in this country.

Today, Flanagan gave a withering evaluation of Minister for Health Simon Harris and his current handling of the healthcare system in Ireland.

As well as his robust claims about Minister Harris, Flanagan went on to criticise his handling of the case of Vera Twomey and her child Ava, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder called Dravet's Syndrome.

Vera has embarked on a second 250 kilometre walk from Cork to Dublin in a bid to get Minister Harris to allow her daughter access to medicinal cannabis. Flanagan said: "Since then the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) have delivered their report to the Minister [on medicinal cannabis]. This report is a classic lesson in how civil servants do their work. "It is conservative in the extreme. A clear case of arse covering. No imagination. No inquiry into alternatives. No breath of analysis. Denial of the facts on the ground." He said that Minister Harris is a man with immense power but he "doesn't have the balls to use it." Minster Harris said yesterday that it was not his usual policy to comment on individual cases, but says that he and the HSE had been in contact with Vera Twomey. In a statement he confirmed:

"I would like to state that I and my Department are doing everything in our power to assist Ms Vera Twomey. I completely understand Vera’s great concern for her daughter, Ava, I have met Vera on four occasions and my Department has been in ongoing contact with her to inform her of the options open to her personally as well as keeping her informed of general developments. I met with Vera last Thursday along with the Chief Medical Officer, senior officials from my Department and from the HPRA, when we provided an update on her own situation and our efforts to address the issue of placing medicinal cannabis on an appropriate regulatory and clinical service basis for the first time in the history of the state."