'I've been busy this week': Simon Coveney has not spoken to Zappone in New York 

Former Children Minister Katherine Zappone's appointment as a UN envoy was subject to much criticism. Picture: PA

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney says he has not spoken to Katherine Zappone since his appearance at the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr Coveney was leaving New York after meeting with Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov and told reporters he had not spoken to Ms Zappone.

A number of visiting Irish media, including the Irish Examiner, left messages at Ms Zappone's apartment building requesting a comment on her botched appointment  as UN Special Envoy, but no response has been received.

Mr Coveney said that he has not spoken to Ms Zappone and believes it is appropriate that she has not made herself available to the same committee which the Minister appeared before twice.

You know, I've been busy this week, and I'm sure you know Katherine is going makes her own decisions. I haven't spoken to her.

"My view on (Ms Zappone's non appearance at the committee) is the same as the Taoiseach's. When somebody leaves public life, they're a private citizen, and they make their own decisions."

Northern Ireland invitation

Mr Coveney was also asked about the advice given by his Department to the President on whether he should attend a church service in Armagh marking 100 years since the partition of Ireland and the creation of Northern Ireland.

He said that he did not have the full advice given to the President's team to hand, but said that it was a broad outline of the event, after which the President made up his own mind not to attend. He said that if he or the Government is invited, he will consider it.

On the America's Cup bid, Mr Coveney said that the ball is now in the court of the organisers who will have to decide whether to grant Ireland an additional six months to do due diligence on bringing the event to Cork.

"There's a process that needs to be followed or needed to be followed. We were not in a position to be able to give the green light for Ireland hosting the America's Cup because the the process of necessary due diligence in terms of how public money would be spent, how we could deliver the infrastructure and the, the management systems, that would be required for something of this scale, we simply didn't have enough time to do that.

"And we've asked for more time to be able to assess whether Ireland could host an event of this size. 

"And I think that will take considerably more time, and there's still hope it's really, it's really up to two elements - Team New Zealand's to decide whether they want to give Ireland that time, and we've asked for an extra six months, or when they look elsewhere and that's really a choice that they need to make."