Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Stu­art Young has is­sued an apol­o­gy for com­ments he made last week dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee de­bate in Par­lia­ment.

His dis­parag­ing com­ments, di­rect­ed to­ward mem­bers of the op­po­si­tion and the Op­po­si­tion Leader were cap­tured on a “hot” mi­cro­phone.

In his state­ment post­ed on­line, Young said, “I made com­ments which were car­ried by a live mi­cro­phone that have gone vi­ral and gen­er­at­ed much at­ten­tion. I ac­cept that more is ex­pect­ed of me as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive mem­ber of par­lia­ment, and I wish to record my re­gret that this ‘cross talk’ has un­nec­es­sar­i­ly dis­tract­ed pub­lic dis­course. Please ac­cept my hum­blest apolo­gies.”

The re­marks drew the ire of mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion and promi­nent mem­bers of the pub­lic like so­cial ac­tivist Wen­dell Ever­s­ley.

“I hope and trust that my record of ser­vice to our coun­try speaks for it­self,” Young con­tin­ued. “Be fur­ther as­sured that I will con­tin­ue to serve with­out fear or favour, mal­ice or ill-will.”

Young’s com­ments and apol­o­gy come at a time where the in­ter­nal bat­tle for [olit­i­cal lead­er­ship of the PNM is heat­ing up as Prime Min­siter Row­ley is seem­ing­ly sig­nal­ing his de­par­ture from front­line pol­i­tics.

Row­ley has not com­ment­ed on Young’s re­marks or the furore it caused.