Zappone memo on Taoiseach's desk before Cabinet meeting, says Varadkar

Mr Varadkar told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that the memo had been in the office the day before the controversy broke.

The memo naming Katherine Zappone as Ireland's appointment to the UN was on the Taoiseach's desk the day before Cabinet, according to Leo Varadkar.

The Taoiseach Micheál Martin was blindsided by the appointment of the former Minister in the last Fine Gael government, reportedly only made aware of the appointment at the meeting on July 27.

Mr Varadkar told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that the memo had been in the office the day before the controversy broke.

"The memo with the name of Katherine Zappone was in the Taoiseach's office, the day before the Cabinet meeting," Mr Varadkar said.

"Notwithstanding that, Simon Coveney and I had a responsibility to flag that to him as a minister, me as a leader in government, there should be good faith and no surprises, and I've spoken the Taoiseach about that, and apologised, I did absolutely.

"Coalitions have to be based on principles of good faith, and we have good faith in this government among the three parties and the three leaders, and no surprises.

"I should have seen the potential political sensitivities in this appointment. It's not the first time we've appointed special envoys, we've been doing them for years, in fact, usually appointed directly by the Taoiseach or the Minister of Foreign Affairs, there's never been a particular process followed, but because it was a former cabinet minister, it was potentially politically sensitive. I should have seen that."

The Taoiseach Micheál Martin was blindsided by the appointment of the former Minister in the last Fine Gael government, reportedly only made aware of the appointment at the meeting on July 27.

The Zappone controversy has plagued Fine Gael for eight weeks, with a no-confidence motion in Simon Coveney on Wednesday and is set to dominate the agenda at the party's two-day think-in in Meath, which began yesterday.

The Tánaiste conceded that the party had been distracted, but said it was time to regroup.

"Fine Gael hasn't been at it's best, hasn't been as competent and it's sharpest for the past couple of weeks and couple of months, and that has led to this conference motion on Wednesday, but this meeting is going to be a good one," he said.

The Tánaiste added that he believes the Freedom of Information Act should be "refreshed" after it emerged Mr Coveney had been deleting texts regarding government business, in direct contravention of the FOI Act. 

Mr Varadkar then went on to compare Mr Coveney deleting text messages from the Tánaiste to people receiving social media direct messages that they had not seen from people they did not know.

"The Freedom Information Act was refreshed in 2015, but I don't think it was refreshed adequately, when freedom information was first developed as a concept it largely related to files, both paper files and electronic files. The world has moved on a lot since then," he said.

"I think we're going to need to do a review and a refresh of the Freedom of Information Act."