Simon Coveney defends Web Summit attack

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney has defended his department’s record of involvement with business leaders at the Web Summit saying he would be very surprised if his staff were found wanting in terms of drumming up business for the country.

Mr Coveney was responding to the continuing fallout from correspondence released by the Web Summit between its co-founder Paddy Cosgrave and officials from the Department of the Taoiseach.

Other than his concerns over a lack of government action on key areas of concern that eventually saw him take the decision to move the event to Lisbon from next year, Mr Cosgrave was highly critical of government departments’ engagement with attendees.

The Department of Agriculture and Mr Coveney were singled out for specific criticism in the correspondence sent in the month prior to the announcement that next year’s event would be in the Portuguese capital.

“We attracted a long list of leading companies and investors in this space from around the world. Did the Department of Agriculture engage a single person that flew to Dublin? No,” Mr Cosgrave wrote.

“Instead of the Irish Minister for Agriculture holding meetings it was left to Prince Charles to extend invitations to key delegates to fly from Dublin to Bristol to meet him on his country estate, Highgrove, to discuss the future of British food and agriculture over an afternoon.”

Mr Coveney, who said he had only seen part of the correspondence but would review it in more detail, defended his own reputation and that of his department.

“I want to see what correspondence actually took place I’ve only seen one paragraph from one small piece of info that was released but let me look into that and I’ll happily answer the questions at that stage but I’d be very surprised if our department was found wanting in any way,” Mr Coveney said.

“I don’t ever remember getting a call being asked to do anything linked to the Web Summit. I think I can be accused of a lot of things but in terms of interacting and being with food companies it’s something I do literally every day.”

Mr Coveney was speaking at the launch of smart home heating manufacturer Accuflow’s Smartzone technology.

The home heating controls, which are specifically designed for the Irish market given their multi-zone capacity which allows it to be used across a number of rooms unlike some of its competitors, will save customers an average of €300 a year.

The launch follows a €1m investment in the Cork company which will see 30 new roles in software development, data analytics, sales and other disciplines.