The Foreign Affairs Minister will today face further questioning over the appointment of Katherine Zappone to a special envoy role.
Simon Coveney is due before the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee after it emerged he offered his former ministerial colleague the UN job four months before it was agreed by Cabinet.
Both Minister Coveney and the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar have apologised for failing to tell the Taoiseach about the appointment until it went before Cabinet.
The special envoy role was not publicly advertised and Ms Zappone eventually relinquished it in the wake of controversy over the appointment process.
"Incredible opportunity"
Text messages released by the Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday show Ms Zappone texted Minister Coveney for the "incredible opportunity" on Tuesday March 4th noting that she would be proud to serve Ireland again.
In an earlier message, on February 22nd she asked Minister Coveney about getting an introduction to Samantha Power, the former US ambassador to the UN.
Gary Gannon, Social Democrats TD and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee told Newstalk that Minister Coveney needs to put a clear timeline of events before the committee today.
“What I would like to simply get from him is just some truth at this point,” he said.
“This is our second meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee and each time they release more information, all it seems to lead to is more questions.
“So, I would actually like to bring some finality to this situation and in order to do that Minister Coveney today is going to have to be very clear with us in relation to the timeline of events.”
Perspective
The Taoiseach Micheál Martin has appealed for balance urged people to keep the controversy “in perspective” – however, Deputy Gannon said he would have a different attitude if he was in opposition.
“I think if Micheál Martin had been on the opposition benches when this broke, he would have been apoplectic with rage,” he said.
“I think he is quite hypocritical in terms of the approach he has taken up to now. What this clearly demonstrates is an arrogance from Fine Gael themselves who designed this process simply to give their friend and former colleague a job.
“That is essentially what has happened here, and I think they have been found out and every step of the way they have been arrogant in terms of trying to downplay it.”
Cabinet
The documents released yesterday also show Ms Zappone told department officials that the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar was really excited about her appointment, five days before the Taoiseach was informed about the role.
Texts released last week showed she had asked the Tánaiste about taking up a UN special envoy role 11 days before Cabinet knew about it.
The documents also suggest the remit of the potential role was altered following a meeting between the Secretary-General of the department and Ms Zappone.
The Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe is also mentioned in the text messages between Ms Zappone and Minister Coveney. On The Hard Shoulder yesterday he said he told Minister Coveney she was considering her future in the context of international organisations and would be contacting him.
He said she never lobbied him about the role.
