Health Minister Stephen Donnelly denies paying for Twitter retweets and likes

A video showing the minister speaking about Cabinet sign off on the new National Maternity Hospital (NMH) got 200 retweets in a matter of minutes after being posted.

Many of the users who retweeted the minister’s tweet have zero followers or appear to be spam accounts.

However, the Department of Health said that neither it or the minister have paid for likes or retweets.

“Neither the Department nor the Minister have paid for any promotional activity in relation to his social media accounts,” said a spokesperson.

The spokesperson refused to offer an explanation for the hundreds of retweets from spam accounts in a matter of minutes after being posted.

“This morning, the Government agreed to proceed with the building of the new National Maternity Hospital. It’s a really important decision and the new hospital is going to be central to women’s healthcare into the future,” Minister Donnelly says in the video.

“We’ve heard over the last while just how much of a difference it’s going to make.

“So now what we gotta do is focus on moving ahead, we’ve had planning permission in place for the last five years, believe it or not. Now we need to move on, get going and get the hospital built.”