Taoiseach should address content of Varadkar texts, says Cowen
Barry Cowen has said that the Taoiseach needs to resolve the controversy over the appointment of Katherine Zappone to a UN special envoy role.
Former Minister for Agriculture Barry Cowen has said that the Taoiseach needs to resolve the controversy over the appointment of Katherine Zappone to a UN special envoy role.
Mr Cowen pointed out that the Micheál Martin had been very decisive “on similar matters in the past” and he should now bring the issue to a conclusion so that the Government could focus on “more important matters.”
The Laois-Offaly TD acknowledged that within the Fianna Fáil party concern had been expressed that Fine Gael TDs were “getting away” with issues while Fianna Fáil TDs had resigned or been sacked.
“We need to move on, there is more important Government business,” he told said.
Mr Cowen said that when he was sacked from the position of Minister for Agriculture he had been told that the issue was getting in the way of Government business.
Minister for Higher Education, Simon Harris, said he was not sure that the controversy was “overshadowing” the work of Government as had been claimed by Barry Cowen who pointed out that he had been sacked when he was told that his controversy was providing a distraction from the work of Government.
When asked if he thought Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney should resign over their involvement in the appointment of Ms Zappone, Mr Cowen said it was up to them to make that decision, but that the Taoiseach needed to address the issue and the content of the texts.
The details contained in the texts which were presented at an Oireachtas Committee meeting this week were “very disconcerting and very disappointing”, he said.
Mr Cowen thought the issue has been resolved when the Minister for Defense, Simon Coveney, had apologised and it had been agreed that there would be greater clarity and transparency in future for such appointments.
But the revelations at the committee indicated that Mr Varadkar and others in Fine Gael had been “a lot more aware” of what was happening. Katherine Zappone had been looking forward to the role when no one was aware of it.
The Taoiseach and the Cabinet should not have been “blindsided” , he added.
It had been very poor judgment to allow the appointment to go through, said Mr Cowen, and said the public backlash was understandable.
Mr Cowen said it is now up to the three political parties to meet and decide how they wish to proceed, but that Mr Martin needs to address and act on the issue and the content of the texts.
According to Mr Cowen, the Government needed to move on to more important issues, if the controversy was getting in the way (of doing Government business) then “people should move on."
Coveney 'only too willing' to clarify controversy
Simon Harris has defended the actions of Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney whom he said was “only too willing” to provide clarification about the appointment of Katherine Zappone as UN special envoy.
Paperwork will be published by the Department of Foreign Affairs to detail the pathway to the appointment he told RTÉ radio’s .
While the issue was one of concern, he acknowledged, there was a need to “step back” and allow Mr Coveney to answer the questions raised by the Oireachtas Committee.
“There needs to be a sense of perspective in this.”
When asked if this was a resigning matter for Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar, Mr Harris said that the Taoiseach had made it clear that the position of the Government was that lessons had been learned.
Everybody “fully accepted” that the entire process (the appointment) could have been handled differently, he said.
Mr Coveney had volunteered the information about his text messages and would provide clarity as to why he had deleted texts.
“We need to step back here and remember what Simon Coveney was trying to do.”
He denied that it was a case of the Minister for Foreign Affairs “divvying up” jobs.
“It’s important to allow the Minister to answer questions. He has admitted that the process followed was not right and apologised to the Taoiseach and the leader of the Green party.”
Mr Harris said that Mr Coveney would “robustly defend” the charge that he misled anyone, and would also provide information about the hacking of his phone.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has also called on the Taoiseach to take action on the controversy over the appointment of Katherine Zappone as UN special envoy.
“What we've seen here has been the latest installment of insider, crony, cosy politics around Fine Gael in particular, and with the government more generally, it's clear that a makey up job was provided for a friend of Government, in this case, Katherine Zappone.
“It is clear that there was lobbying underway for this job, it is clear that both Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney were across all of this and the Taoiseach kept in the dark and Simon Coveney was less than forthcoming to the committee and offered incomplete and misleading information to the committee,” she said on .
“The Taoiseach does need to take action. It is incredible that yet again we see the head of Government blindsided by the two principles from Fine Gael and that when something like this emerges that the Taoiseach fails to take action.
“We all know that the Government makes appointments and that's part of governance, but there have to be procedures, there has to be oversight, transparency. Being in Government isn't a green light to look after their mates - whether that's leaking documents to them, confidential documents, or making up jobs and titles for them.
“It's entirely unacceptable, it's the worst face of that old-time crony Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael politics that people are sick to the back teeth of, that undermines confidence in Government and in politics generally.
“What we've seen here is the invention of a makey up job for a friend and then a desperate effort to cover their tracks including deleting texts, giving incomplete information to FOI requests.
“The Taoiseach, if he wishes to continue leading Government, actually has to lead from the front. When he was blindsided he heeded to put the brakes on things to put a stop to it … He should have put a stop then, he failed to do that.
“He should insist there is the fullest accountability and explanation by Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar and anyone else involved.”
Ms McDonald said that questions remained about the event at the Merrion Hotel – what the purpose of the event was, whether it was a 'victory lap', or even who paid for it.
It was “absolutely clear” that there are double standards, she said.
“It seems to me there is a belief at the heart of Government that certain people can duck and dive and have a very loose interpretation of the rules and the standards that would be expected of anyone filling a ministerial post.
“If the Government chooses to operate and behave in a way that is more reminiscent of a sort of a satirical Ballymagash version of Irish political life, where it is who you know not what you know and it's you scratch my back and I scratch your's, jobs for the boys, jobs for the girls, insider cosy dealings, leaving people outside, of course, that corrupts and undermines the capacity of Government to deliver and it also enrages public opinion," she said.
Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport, and Media Catherine Martin has described Cabinet leaks to the media as “a very serious matter” and that it was “absolutely unacceptable” for them to happen.
The leak about the appointment of Katherine Zappone as a UN special envoy was “an internal matter for Fine Gael”.
That was not the way to do government business, she said.
“I would not be satisfied with that,” she told RTÉ radio’s .
“I'm not happy with the process and I'm not happy with the matter being landed on Cabinet. I hope lessons are learned. I would expect much better practice.”
It was “absolutely unacceptable that leaks would happen like that,” she added. “If the motivation behind the leak is to cause trouble, that's for that individual to sit back and examine themselves.
“It's a serious matter and an unnecessary distraction for where we are as a country now as we're trying to navigate our way out of Covid when we should be focusing on housing and health.”
On the issue of the Minister for Foreign Affairs deleting texts, Ms Martin said that she was not in the habit of conducting Government business by text and that within her department it was quite clear that official business should be conducted through official email accounts. In circumstances where that was not possible and texts were used then a full record of communications should be kept, she said.
Labour party leader Alan Kelly told the same programme that there was “an Orwellian feel” about the issue and that “some Ministers were more equal than others.” It appeared that the Taoiseach was “willing to put up with anything” to remain in power.
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