We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
LAST UPDATE | 13 Sep 2021
TÁNAISTE LEO VARADKAR has said he, and Ministers Simon Coveney and Paschal Donohoe have apologised to the Fine Gael parliamentary party for allowing important government issues to be overshadowed by the Katherine Zappone controversy this summer.
Donohoe also confirmed to reporters this afternoon that he has spoken to Zappone since the controversy erupted.
He told the media today that while he could not remember the exact date, he contacted her to tell her he would be making a public statement on his contact with her about the UN envoy role.
Whether she comes forward to answer questions on the controversy is a matter for herself, he said.
Speaking to reporters in Trim at the beginning of the two-day party think-in, the Tánaiste said today’s meeting is a good opportunity for the party to “refresh, regroup and reset” after what “was not a good summer for Fine Gael”.
The meeting is also a chance for the party to “rebound” he said, and to focus on issues such as the easing of the final Covid-19 restrictions, the vaccine booster programme, and next month’s Budget.
With a theme of ‘Responding to New Challenges to Shape Our Future’, the think-in will feature policy sessions and workshops, as well as discussion on party organisation.
The meeting comes following weeks of controversy for a number of Fine Gael ministers.
Sinn Féin is set to table a motion of no-confidence in Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney in the Dáil this week as the controversy surrounding the planned appointment of Zappone as a special envoy to the United Nations rumbles on.
The motion states that the proposed appointment of Zappone amounted to cronyism and fell below the standard of government expected by the public. It will be flipped by the Government to a motion of confidence in Coveney and is expected to pass.
Coveney came under fire two weeks ago when he said he deleted a number of text messages exchanged with Zappone and the Tánaiste.
“I’ve been hacked and I’m Minister Foreign Affairs and Defence, so I think it is prudent that I clear my phone quite regularly,” Coveney said at the time.
Texts later released by Varadkar show that he texted Coveney in July to ask if he “knew anything” about Zappone taking on the envoy role.
The Foreign Affairs Minister last week apologised to an Oireachtas committee over what he described as the “political fiasco” around Zappone’s appointment. He has maintained that his former government colleague Zappone did not lobby him for the UN role.
Fresh question marks about who knew what, when have also emerged today after FF Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath said the memo that went to Cabinet on the morning of the meeting signing off on her planned appointment did not have the names of prospective appointees.
Varadkar told reporters in Trim today that he is not contradicting the Minister but “we are actually both right”.
A separate memo with names was sent to the Department of the Taoiseach the previous night, he added.
A government spokesperson said that the Taoiseach was not informed of the name proposed for the appointment.
“Nor was he alerted at the leaders meeting the evening before the Cabinet, and the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs have apologised for this.
“The first time the Taoiseach was aware that Katherine Zappone was being nominated for a role was at the Cabinet meeting, once the memo was distributed.”
An email from the Secretary General of Department of Foreign Affairs was sent to the Secretary General in the Department of Taoiseach at 9.24pm on the night before Cabinet.
“This was not sent to anyone else in the Department until the following morning, when it was sent to the Government Secretariat just before Cabinet,” said the spokesperson.
Varadkar said today that both he and Minister Coveney had a responsibility to flag the appointment with the Taoiseach and he is not departing from his apology that he made to Micheál Martin a number of weeks ago.
Varadkar reiterates that this summer has not been a good one for Fine Gael pic.twitter.com/w8RdFXujhv
— Christina Finn (@christinafinn8) September 13, 2021
Won’t bring down the government
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland today, Varadkar said that he should have seen the “political sensitivities” in Zappone’s appointment as a special envoy.
“The memo with the name of Katherine Zappone was in the Taoiseach’s office the day before the Cabinet meeting – notwithstanding that, Simon Coveney and I had a responsibility to flag that to him,” Varadkar said.
“In a coalition government, there should be good faith and no surprises,” he said.
“It has to be based on two principles: good faith, and we have good faith in this government among the three parties and the three leaders; and no surprises.”
Varadkar stated: “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, never been a particular process followed, but because it was a former cabinet minister, it was potentially politically sensitive. I should have seen that, I didn’t, and I’d like to take responsibility for that.”
He said that there “have been times when as Fine Gael we’ve been a little bit surprised about things that the Greens have done or Fianna Fáil have done and what you do when something like that happens is you front up, you accept the other person’s good faith and you move on”.
Varadkar also said he believes the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act has not been “refreshed adequately”.
“When FOI 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.”
‘Bad summer’
Justice and Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys said she had to accept that “it hasn’t been a good summer” for her party, but she said the “mood is buoyant” at the meeting today.
She said they remain in touch with their voters, and are determined to re-focus on the main issues in the autumn term.
Donohoe said the party has to admit that it got things wrong and “could have done far better” in relation to how things were handled with the Zappone appointment.
He said in the next Dáil term, Fine Gael will “take Sinn Féin on, take them on in the Dáil, take them on in our constituency…. and expose them for the lack of having any plan” for the challenges ahead.
Rotunda Hospital
Speaking in Trim, Varadkar told The Journal that he can understand both points of view when it comes to the TV programme filmed in the Rotunda Maternity Hospital.
The hospital suffered a public backlash last week when it emerged that documentary makers were granted access to their wards while restrictions remained for the partners of expectant mothers.
It led to the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly criticising the decision on Friday. The Taoiseach said he didn’t think the production was appropriate.
“I can really understand the feelings of pregnant women and their partners” who were unable to attend important appointments, Varadkar said.
He said he could also understand how, from their point of view, it would “really jar” with them that a camera crew was allowed in.
However he added that he could also understand the view of the infection control staff in the hospital, and how having a small film crew on site would be different to having hundreds of partners enter the premises.
“I can understand it from both sides, and I really don’t like to dump on people working on the frontline,” he added.
Staff at the hospital try and make the best decisions for the patients, he said.
The hospital announced on Saturday that it is to relax restrictions on partners just days after the controversy broke out.
It said that it will ease restrictions and allow longer visiting hours for partners will be permitted.
Daily Mail article
At today’s think-in, Minister of State Hildegarde Naughten also called the weekend’s Daily Mail article which criticised the appearance of Fianna Fáil politicians at their party think-in last week as “disgraceful”.
She said it didn’t matter what party people were in, women in all parties are “very hard-working”.
“I just feel it is very disrespectful to women and coming from a woman, it is very disappointing”.
The Tánaiste said: “I feel the same… we really shouldn’t be demeaning people based on what they wear or their appearance. That goes for women and it goes for men as well.”
The Green Party and Labour Party think-in events are also taking place today and tomorrow.
Speaking on Morning Ireland, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said “a mistake was made” by Coveney and Varadkar in relation to the Zappone appointment.
However, he said the three coalition parties want to move forward.
“We have important work to do. I don’t believe the Irish people would thank us if we brought down a government on something which while it was important that it was addressed, it was addressed, it was acknowledged that the process needs to change.”
With reprtoing by Órla Ryan, Lauren Boland and Hayley Halpin.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
And the Russians tell us we can’t call it genocide………:
Who’s us @greenmonkey? – We stood by with the Brits, French and US and the rest of Europe while it happened. Great to be neural eh. I’d say Russia saved Europe embarrassment.
Report in last Sunday’s ‘Observer’ stated one of the survivors awoke under a mound of bodies – and saw the Soldiers exhausted from all the killing, taking a cigarette break before resuming putting the Bosniaks in a line and massacring them.
The ‘Allies’ had forewarning of this massacre but because the serbs wanted the land and this was a pre-requisite of Peace, they basically acquiesced to them taking it knowing what would happen.
Then we wonder why they hate us.
Spot on Sergeant Yates. As far as I can remember, the British wanted to send ground troops in but the U.S. Stalled. I could be wrong but, in any case, the inaction of the wider international community was stunning. It was car crash stuff played out before our very eyes.
I see the troll factory is up and at it this morning.
Actually Sargeant Yates, the much maligned Americans eventually went in and sorted it out while the Europeans still sat around doing nothing. People were going on holidays to nearby countries while genocide was happening in modern day Europe. Shameful.
Correct, Europe seemed absolutely paralyzed to act, and no one really covered themselves in glory. I clearly remember that snivelling English foregin sec Douglas Hurd defending the arms embargo in this period that prevented the Bosnians defending themselves.
This war overall showed Europe’s unwillingness to intervene and it eventually fell to the US to get things moving. Well done to Clinton, Madeline Albright and Dick Holbrooke for helping to bring that war to an end.
I remember it all vividly as the horror played out. I remember the incomprehensible news that the UN had don’t nothing. Useless as ever. I remember three young Muslim boys, best pals in life, lying dead beside each other. I remember Serbs protecting and celebrating the war criminals, many still doing so.
I’m always amazed Jurgen by how many people in Ireland are so polarised on the U.S. foreign policy. Yes it is usually self-serving (tell me a country whose isn’t), yes they get it wrong sometimes, but at least they do something and don’t just issue verbal reprimands from afar. Our own policy of neutrality is totally outdated now. I may not agree with the U.S. on everything they do but they’re a friend of Ireland and I’m grateful for that.
@kevin i never suggested otherwise – in relation to this one massacre the US were as culpable as anyone else – but it was the Americans (with a Clinton election campaign in mind) that did the heavy lifting to bring the war to an end.
Sure sergeant Yates. My tone wasn’t meant to be adversarial. I was just emphasising that the U.S. did eventually do something to sort it out, while Europe kept talking.
Yugoslavia as a country should never have been created in the first place.
Agreed Kevin. Many see US foreign policy as all the same when they change under different administrations. My country gets many things wrong, spectacularly so. Bush’s Iraq invasion is the most obvious disastrous US example. But the reflexively anti US nature of many prevents them ever seeing any good from the US.
Also agree re neutrality. I’ve had some good natured debates on this forum and in person, others not so good natured, on Irish neutrality. The Srebrenica massacre is a question that confronts every nation – what would they do? No one questions the excellent peacekeeping work of Ireland, and the ability of its forces. But why just exclusivley just peacekeeping? Denmark has an excellent peacekeeping record and is also a NATO member. The two are not mutually exclusive as many of the proponents of Irish neutrality tell me.
Irish neutrality seems to me to be a sacred cow for most in Ireland. Irish people will moan and whinge about not doing anything about IS, Rwandan Genocide, Srebrenica or other atrocities – but when it comes to it, will they want Irish troops going in, in an offensive capacity? Like hell they will – it will be peacekeeping and that’s it.
Couldn’t agree with you more Jurgen. If you took neutrality to a micro level, it would be like saying you wouldn’t intervene if you saw a thug beating up an old lady because you don’t take sides.
No all – I remember watching at the time & the French Foreign Legion stripped their UN uniforms & re-painted their vehicles. – As for Russia saving embarrassment – they were backing & influencing Serbia. The reason they’re refusing to recognise it as genocide is because it was carried out using Russian supplied weapons.
@matt. I’ve just been told by a Bosnian survivor that French legion stole and sold artefacts from museums and even worse sold intelligence to the serbska republic militia. They are certainly not respected here.
Jurgen…I remember it well…no atrocity against Bosnian civilians was too much…remember the mortar killed more than 30 in a market in Sarajevo and the Serbs claimed THEY we’re being FRAMED for this while claiming the Bosnians actually did it? To their own?
Unless there is oil involved you can forget about foreign intervention. And when it does come it’s usually too late
“Then we wonder why they hate us.”
Who’s us @SergeantYates?
You are looking at the incidents in isolation, in reality there are usually much larger forces at play. In the case of Syria it’s about maintaining Shia Sunni balance. There’s the stability of the region to be considered. Remember at the beginning it s Al Assad that had to be removed cause he was this terrible dictator, now it’s the opposition of ISIS that’s the problem. And we wish for the stability of the Assad era, things are never as simple as they seem.
Ah friend, that’s why Geithner was so intransigent on our debt write down, is feidir Linn
The UN sat in the hills watching genocide being committed and did nothing. The most useless pointless organisation ever assembled. It was reality TV at its worst. Ethnic cleansing to your living room. Pictures of starving people behind barbed wire will never leave me and just 50 yrs after the holocaust. Shameful.
You sound like someone who had a vocation to be involved in politics.
ISIS are also rampaging these days. Nobody is doing anything. All the talk is about a bunch of cosseted Mediterraneans coming to terms with paying tax as the humanitarian issue of our day.
It boggles the mind how the UN works. This incident will “haunt it’s history forever”? Will Syira? Or do we have to wait 20 years before looking back and saying “this incident will haunt us forever”?
And it’s another area that Russia has used it’s veto.
Difference though is that these Bosnians were under un protection, and then given up which should never have happened.
Russia and China. Let’s not forget their vetoes every time action was proposed years ago before Syria descended into total chaos.
true malvolia – but martin, above, points out that it business relationships seem to neuter the un more and more often….
Quite right Martin, Syria could be as tranquil as Libya is by now.
Compared to Syria, Libya is tranquil.
Indeed Colin – but then my radar picked that comment up as sarcasm….
the UN is used as a populating game. Nothing more, nothing less. The middle men to those who want to play god. The decisions on where to increase it, where to decrease it, oh and perhaps even the climate.
Yea, it boggled my mind too, they’re not the good guys, they’re not the bad guys either but part of the agenda. Create wars here, give reasons to move populations here. Sit back and watch cultures destroy each other, then step back and let the big boys move in to reap it.
…when the UN would not protect them (not ‘could’)
Like Rwanda a few years before it, the world especially Europe (typical) sat back and did nothing.
Another connection between the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides is that they were driven by Christians against religious minorities.
@daisy. I’ve just been on a few tours around Sarajevo. All the guides deny it was religious based. More to do, according to them, with Milosevic’s quest for a greater Serbia. Croatia, a Catholic country, initially sided with Bosnia against the Serb republic, but later tried to claim part of Bosnia as their own. I’ve learnt a lot today.
And Serbia is well on its way to becoming a member of the EU. I think they should be kept out for at least k few generations.
this caused a Dutch government to resign & rightly so. I have met Bosniaks after this war & their stories are horrendous. One of the things they have said to me was that expected a force from their neighbours in the EU to come & rescue them but it never happened. We criticise the US for some of their action & sometimes rightly so but if you want to prevent such things its only the US that can do so. The Dutch forces on this day effectively created this mess & their commander can be seen drinking champagne with the serb commanders before handing these muslims their fate.
The Dutch forces did not create this mess. There were aproximately 800 Dutch, lightly armed, troops facing an overwhelming Serbian force. Repeated requests from the commander of ‘Dutchbat’ for air support were ignored. As has just become public, the US, UK and France had made a decision weeks before the Srebenicia enclave fell that no air support would be made available. The reason : UK and French troops had been taken hostage and there were fears they would be massacred if the Serbian forces came under attack from the air. None of the members of ‘Dutchbat’ wanted to surrender. They knew there would be serious consequences for the population. The suggestion that the Dutch commander drank champagne with the commander of the Serbian forces is an outright lie and should be with drawn. The commander of Dutchbat, Colonel Karremans, has demanded an apology from the current Dutch minister of Defence now that documents have been made public in the USA which clearly show that there was an agreement between the USA, UK and France denying air support.
Rudy de groot…I’ve read your posts on this with great interest…as luck would have it I met a member of the Dutch battalion in Luxembourg in 2003.I was and still am disgusted by this atrocity and we had several conversations about Srebrenica…what you write today confirms what he said to me,in fact he was a lot more critical of USAF air cover and as he was a FAC…..his criticisms were very convincing.
Interesting, Rudy, thanks for that.
Rudy, I agree with most of your posts on this thread. Dutch peacekeepers were placed in an almost impossible position in the face of overwhelming force from the Serb army.
Its a fact that the Dutch commander was photographed drinking with Ratko Mladic though. The photograph may have been taken out of context, but its indisputable that it exists:
http://www.anselm.edu/academic/history/hdubrulle/Europe1945/graphics/Mladic%20and%20Karremans.jpg
Avina so many questions.
You’re right, there are indeed several pictures taken of Thom Karremans with glass in hand with Radko Mladic. I also know there are pictures of Jimmy Carter and other Western leaders with Radko Mladic. Does that mean they wanted to meet that monster? I am left wondering, just because we can not see the gun to Thom Karremans head, does not mean that Thom Karremans was not under immense pressure to appear to be on good terms and “enjoy” a drink. Question is ;was this staged or just a casual occasion and everybody having a good time?
I realise the involvement and apparant lack of action of the Dutch troops in this event has been interpreted as cooperation with the Serbs. As commander of Dutchbat Thom Karremans was faced with Hobsons choice. Fight, without any cover of air support and risk the slaughter of all the civilians and his own troops in the enclave, or surrender and try and minimise the casualties, wich is what he decided to do. There were 7 (SEVEN !!!!) formal requests for air support, none of them answered. Being Dutch I know I am biased. Yet I would not defend the indefensible. The commander of Dutchbat did not have a choice. What unfolded in Sebrenica is incredible. The resultant slaughter of 8000, primarily men and boys is unimaginable for those of us that were not there or affected by the loss of life. It is only now that (some of) the truth is beginning to emerge. Dutchbat did not stand a chance and some of the comments are very hard to take.
Sad thing is that this is more likely to happen again in Europe when the EU eventually breaks up(over money). Give those idiots Merkel and Junkers a good slap on the back.
Merkel and Juncker – probably the 2 most sinister people in European politics
The UN couldn’t protect them ? More like wouldn’t protect them .
The UN is a toothless tiger , they did the same in Rwanda
I read an article in the guardian last week saying the Dutch peacekeepers even supplied the Serbs with petrol to transport the victims. Horrendous.
More like were forced to surrender fuel at gun point!
Shame on Europe. we allowed this to go on and without intervention, it took U.S air strikes in the end to sort out a European problem. I hope we all have a guilt trip today.
The Orthodox Serbs never forgot the Muslims stealing their lands and butchering their people centuries before, and they never forgave the Catholic Croats for supporting the Nazis during WW2.
Jamie but they were not the same people who did those things, one thing they can’t see as evil is taught as is most things…
Following your logic we all should fight Italy now. Roman Empire used to own all Europe and most of UK. They were famous for massacres of Celts as well.
I didn’t say anyone should fight anybody. Just providing a bit of context. What occurred in Bosnia was appalling.
People spend most of their time living in the past, sometimes their ancestral past?
They sure do Michael, they sure do. The cheek by jowl nature of the conflict between Serbs and Muslims in the Balkans has many comparisons with the conflict in the north of Ireland; Internicene nature of the war, a 400-year-old battle between natives and outsiders who arrived in with a different religion. All the ingredients for perpetual strife.
The easiest thing to teach is hatred…
Indeed one must preach forgiveness and tolerance.
apologies are not good enough from these so called leaders, protectors,when it comes to loss of human life.
‘could not protect them’…should that not be ‘would not protect them’?
Is Bosniak a word?
Yep, Bosnian Muslims
Your homework for tonight is to write a short story about the boy who couldn’t use google.
What’s Google?
Hoisted with your own petard there, Aidan.
@sergeant – I would say “bing it” but nobody, literally NOBODY would say that!
I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is…
Sergeant, Google is a search engine that the NSA use to spy on people as well as Google use to sell what you search for to companies. In the future the data stored on people could be used as a way to send them to future concentration camps as some nutters now believe… lol.
Avina Laaf, it is a caravan with a GPS system lol.
In Sarajevo now. Just been to Srebrenica memorial museum. Extremely moving and understandable how they reacted to Serb pm. Felt like doing it myself.
Photographs of UN soldier graffiti shocking. Shows how little respect they had for the people. Comparing them to animals.
My husband was in UN in Bosnia. What graffiti are you referring to?
Thanks for the clarification folks
If Vucic really believed it was a “monstrous crime”, then why did he did he get his good friend Putin to veto a UN resolution during the week condemning the massacre as “genocide”?
I honestly thought from the headline that I was going to see a clearly inebriated politician. Language is an amazing thing.
initially I thought the headline was referring to him smoking some herb.
It is awful what people say out of hatred that leads to them doing things out of hatred and then they go to far and then blame others like their victims, true sign of evil people…
The DUTCH are to blame – they not soldiers they are dumb whimps
I refer to my comments above. Your comment is reprehensible and absolutely not supported by facts. I refer to my previous comments.
Ohhhh .. The other stoned
So many typos in this article.
Oh, stoned. gotcha. thinking himself & our Ming would get along great.
have your say