“I am not afraid as Min­is­ter of Health to talk the truth.”

That’s how Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh re­spond­ed to crit­i­cism from the pub­lic and the fa­ther of the young woman he scold­ed on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion on Mon­day for breach­ing the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions.

Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from Guardian Me­dia, Deyals­ingh ac­knowl­edged that he re­ceived mixed re­views on his scold­ing.

“I have re­ceived some con­dem­na­tion but I have al­so re­ceived mes­sages from many par­ents say­ing at last some­body had the strength to talk to young peo­ple,” he said.

“I took an oath in of­fice re­cent­ly to con­duct my­self with­out fear, favour, mal­ice or ill will. I am not afraid as Min­is­ter of Health to talk the truth.”

Deyals­ingh said he ex­pect­ed to re­ceive back­lash from his com­ments when he made them and added: “As a mat­ter of fact, I thought it would have been worse.”

He said he is “com­fort­ed” by the nu­mer­ous calls he has since re­ceived from par­ents com­mend­ing him for his ac­tions.

Over the week­end, Saman­tha Ramis­c­hand post­ed a video of her­self and fam­i­ly mem­bers on what she said was their “pri­vate beach.” Mem­bers of the pub­lic took to so­cial me­dia to con­demn her ac­tions and on Mon­day the Min­is­ter spent a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of his con­tri­bu­tion dur­ing a vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence to scold Ramis­c­hand among oth­er young peo­ple who he called “ir­re­spon­si­ble” for breach­ing the reg­u­la­tions.

But on Tues­day evening, Ramis­c­hand’s fa­ther, a Guyanese-born at­tor­ney Odai Ramishc­hand took to Face­book to de­fend the ac­tions of his daugh­ter and fam­i­ly. He said his fam­i­ly and friends had gath­ered to cel­e­brate his last son’s 15th birth­day “so it was not a frol­ic of their own kind of thing or any type of bizarre or un­civilised be­hav­iour.”

Ramis­c­hand said the event was on 600 acres of pri­vate­ly owned land but they were ad­her­ing to the so­cial gath­er­ing reg­u­la­tions.

But he al­so di­rect­ed an ex­ple­tive-filled com­ment to Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh say­ing: “(Ob­scene word used) you. And your fam­i­ly and be pre­pared for a fight you have nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore.”