Michael Dunkley, Bermuda’s Premier, took aim at the Opposition Leader over “irrational” comments made during a radio interview last week after the Reply to the Throne Speech.

Mr Dunkley said that, during the interview on HOTT 107, Marc Bean made a series of comments maligning Toni Daniels, the former One Bermuda Alliance Senator, and accusing the Government of corruption without evidence.

During his speech on the Motion to Adjourn, Mr Dunkley read several excerpts from a transcript of the interview, which he told the House he received from the station itself.

He quoted the Opposition Leader as saying: “Word on the street is that Ms Daniels is being used as a conduit for monies to disappear out of the Bermuda Tourism Authority. And the reason she is being used was because she has a relationship with a Government Minister and his best friend.”

Mr Dunkley described the comments as unacceptable trash, saying: “That’s the Opposition Leader. Word on the street? What kind of credibility are we going to have as a country when the Opposition Leader gets on the radio station listened to by Bermudians and probably overseas people on the web?”

The Premier said that Mr Bean then continued, saying he had asked Ms Daniels about another “secret relationship” involving the Minister and another young woman attached to the OBA, telling the host: “The problem is it seems like it is a pattern with the young women in the OBA; they are all doing the same behaviour.”

Mr Dunkley added: “And now you wonder why my colleagues are upset! It’s ludicrous.”

The Premier said that later in the interview, Mr Bean claimed that he had confronted the Premier and other members of the OBA about how they treated OBA MP Suzann Roberts Holshouser after she voted against the rest of the party on a motion to create a committee to investigate claims of the theft or dispossession of residents’ property. Mr Dunkley said Mr Bean never made such comments to him and that his actions did not belie his words.

Continuing to read sections of the transcript, Mr Dunkley said Mr Bean alleged that a “poor” transcription of an audio recording involving Mr Bean and Nandi Outerbridge, the OBA backbencher, had been circulated by the OBA among Progressive Labour Party delegates in an effort to damage the Opposition Leader’s reputation before the party’s leadership election last month.

“This is the same Opposition [that] one of their members was running for leadership couldn’t get a copy of the delegates [list] because it was a secret list,” Mr Dunkley said. “So if he can’t get it, how can the Government get it?

“But it gets worse. But then he goes on and says: ‘And I have a prominent businessman telling me, Listen, I was approached by one of the OBA business people who didn’t realise I was PLP and they offered me this transcription with one caveat: that I had to give them $10,000 apiece for a fundraising campaign.’

“Really, Mr Speaker? You think we would be stupid enough to run around with a tape and demand money?

“That’s bribery. That’s corruption. We’ve got integrity. They [the PLP] will sink themselves.”

Mr Dunkley concluded, saying: “The fact of the matter is we need to do better than that.

“We need to hold each other accountable. If you want to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk.

“You can’t come up here and call this Government irrational and talk about bribery and corruption without putting information on the table. Every time you do, we will come back and slap it back.

“When rational comments come from that side, we will listen and we will work with them, but when irrational comments come and theories and giveaways and all this type of stuff, we will dismiss it and we will continue to move forward.”