Varadkar accused of 'doing what he wants while an industry slowly dies' after attending music festival in UK

Leo Varadkar was pictured at the Mighty Hoopla festival in London Picture: Oonagh Murphy/Twitter
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has been accused of "doing what he wants while an industry slowly dies" after attending a music festival in London.
A photograph posted on Twitter late on Saturday showed Mr Varadkar at the Mighty Hoopla festival on the same weekend Electric Picnic was cancelled, leading to anger from the arts community in Ireland.
The festival saw 25,000 people attend Brockwell Park in London, all with proof of vaccination or negative PCR test. It boasted headliners including Cheryl Cole, Atomic Kitten and Alexandra Burke.
Members of the events industry were quick to point out that Mr Varadkar's government has overseen the widescale closure of large events.
The Tánaiste himself attended a meeting with the industry last Monday ahead of an announcement on reopening.
One source who attended that meeting said that when posed with the fact that festivals were going ahead in the UK, Mr Varadkar said that the country was not an example for dealing with the spread of Covid-19. London reported over 3,000 daily cases of the virus on September 2, two days before the festival.
A spokesperson for the Tánaiste said he is "currently in the UK on private time where such events are allowed".
The statement added: “Festivals and concerts are permitted in Ireland from Monday. The Tánaiste is one of the strongest supporters of the events industry in Government.
“He supported Electric Picnic going ahead and helped secure the reopening plan for concerts and other big events beginning on Monday with capacity limits and vaccination certificate moving to full capacity next month.”
“The industry has received over €100 million in financial support from Government, not including EWSS (employment wage subsidy scheme) and PUP (pandemic unemployment payment).”
Ignores our calls to open up our entertainment industry, then fucks off to a festival in the UK.. @mightyhoopla . Zero shame @LeoVaradkar pic.twitter.com/AzzIgTefjB
— Buzz O'Neill-Maxwell (@buzzoneill) September 4, 2021
Events promoter Buzz O'Neill-Maxwell tweeted that Mr Varadkar had "ignored calls to open up the industry" and had treated the industry with "apathy".
The band Beoga tweeted that the Tánaiste was "doing whatever (he) wants while an industry slowly dies".
Mr Varadkar was also criticised by Kate O'Connell, a former Fine Gael TD and frequent critic of his. Ms O'Connell told
that the picture was "tone deaf".“I do think that the pictures, to my mind, show a serious lack of self-awareness, I think the week that’s in it and I think if you’re a policy maker making decisions that are affecting all of our lives, and then you leave the country within which you make those decisions to have your jolly elsewhere, I think it’s jarring,” she said.
“I think it was completely tone deaf. I think it’s about leadership and showing example. I think a point comes where you have to be mature and say, ‘How will this look?’
“We’re not all the second in command of the country and that’s the fundamental difference.”