Stop picking on me – there is no way I would ever mock the public

From Senator Terry Le Main.

PLEASE be kind enough to publish this letter so I can explain to your readers my defence to your seeming campaign of picking on me for absenting myself from the first States meeting of 2010 by going on holiday.

Firstly, may I say it’s really sad and pathetic that for some unknown reason you see fit to pick upon me for missing this States meeting when throughout the year several members have been ‘en défaut’ because of taking their holidays, etc (and I am aware that for several of these members there have been very valid family reasons).

For several years I have not taken a holiday break during the States Christmas holiday period because my role as Housing Minister demands that I am available to assist any of our tenant clients during these long holiday breaks.

I and my assistant minister Deputy Power, and before him Deputy Jacqueline Hilton, have had to put up with calls day and night, seven days a week. Many calls are urgent to those who make them and of course there are difficult clients that we have to deal with. Where else in the world can someone call a minister 24 hours a day and get an immediate response?

To further defend myself, the Housing Minister is the only minister who has public surgeries twice a month to assist the public. My answerphone when I am out is changed twice daily. Everyone gets a response. And, yes, I visit the elderly services wards at Health on Christmas morning among many other things. But what particularly galls me is to have to put forward my private and personal life so that I can defend myself from your very unfair attacks.

Yes, I have a very aged mother and aunt who rely on family members to look after them, yes I have a duty of care to my beloved mother, and, yes I have to share the burden of her care and try to give her some quality of life.

This responsibility is borne by a close family member virtually on a daily basis and I have a duty to give some respite to close family involved on a daily basis in our mother’s care.

Please remember that being a States Member is an utter privilege. To be elected as a States Member by your own people is an honour and something sacrosanct and there is no way I would ever try to mock or otherwise the public as a States Member. If anyone has been offended by your misreporting or otherwise, then please accept my apologies. It was not of my doing.

There are other very personal issues that I am not prepared to share with your readers as to why I needed a break and that I could only have done so at this time, missing the first meeting of the States.

Please be advised I do have to maintain the quality of life for my family, my wife who so greatly assists in my being a States Member behind the scenes, my children, my two granddaughters who came back from university for Christmas – these children are our lives and we have to be there for them.

So, to the people of Jersey who may have been offended by my so-called behaviour and allegations of contempt, I apologise because I would never do that.