Spokespersons for both Paschal Donohoe and Simon Harris say the ministers concerned did not attend any meetings as mentioned by Maitiú Ó Tuathail in latest screen grabs published by Village Magazine
Other meetings claimed by Ó Tuathail with Leo Varadkar are contested by public diaries - one date conflicts with Varadkar meeting the President of Cuba; he was already in Brussels ahead of a separate claimed meeting; on another he was out of Dublin campaigning on Euro elections
Varadkar spokesman: “Many of these encounters simply did not happen. The magazine has its facts wrong again. We are not going to make any further comment.”
All of this is a rather needless distraction from the whole question of the bona fides and correctness of sharing the IMO deal with the NAGP in the first place, and the extent to which the coalition is in lockstep behind the Tánaiste
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Paschal Donohoe channeling Abraham Lincoln: "Sinn Féin do not appeal to the better angels of our nature… they seek to arouse the darker spirits to make their case… a deeply cynical politics they have practiced for too long"
Eoin Ó Broin says the passing of the IMO deal to "a personal friend and political supporter" comes in contrast to SF's unsuccessful attempts to have the Govt formally publish all its interactions with the NAGP
Róisín Shortall says Leo Varadkar "concocted a false narrative, a cock-and-bull story which clearly misrepresented the truth", and that this is a greater error than the original leak
Micheál Martin warns the Dáil about taking messages between third parties at face value … then goes studs-up on Sinn Féin … then says he is happy to propose a motion in Varadkar as head of govt implementing "an urgent and progressive programme" to tackle pandemic and more
All politics is local. Martin - the next Tánaiste - is followed by his constituency colleague Simon Coveney - the previous Tánaiste - to defend Leo Varadkar - the current Tánaiste. He says Varadkar made "a mistake" but "online trolls" would have you believe he personally gained
Coveney says Varadkar is the victim of an obvious "political campaign masquerading as whistleblowing to inflict maximum political damage" - and then talks about Varadkar's own record of supporting whistleblowers like Maurice McCabe
Just before he deleted it… Taoiseach says he had a phone call with @JoeBiden - making him one of the first (if not THE first?) world leaders to speak directly with the President-elect?
@JoeBiden I understand a phone call is still being arranged with Martin and Biden, but hasn't happened yet, and the tweet was posted in error
Discussion between Martin and Biden is expected to happen this evening
What a time to be alive: the Dáil is now meeting at Leinster House with the sole intention of leaving Leinster House and going down to the CCD. Rows afoot.
SF also raising issue with the fact that the Govt's motion of confidence in Leo Varadkar trumps the previous SF plan, but came at such short notice that SF has been debarred from using its time for anything else
Deputy chief whip Brendan Griffin says SF had enough time to submit alternative business but didn't do so; he also argues that Varadkar could not legitimately take Question Time tonight as scheduled if there was a motion of confidence hanging over him
⚠️⚖️ Newly-released letters show the Chief Justice has repeatedly suggested Seamus Woulfe should resign from the Supreme Court over #golfgate - believing it is the most appropriate means "to maintain public confidence in the Supreme Court" and justice in general @VirginMediaNews
Letters published by the Chief Justice Frank Clarke show him telling Woulfe that while it wasn't an offence to attend the #golfgate dinner, a judge should not have attended any event which may have been organised in breach of law or which looked like it might have been
Even if the dinner had been lawful, Woulfe says, it still didn't comply with the objective of the regulations, which was to prevent large numbers of people mingling at social events. The fact the new health measures did not have force of law at the time was immaterial
Surprise surprise: more disagreement at the Dáil’s business committee.
SF motion in Leo Varadkar was originally to be taken in the party’s own two-hour Dáil slot tomorrow, with the vote then deferred until the weekly voting time on Wednesday night. (1/6)
The Govt is keen to go back to old practice - which had been dispensed with in recent years - and table a motion of confidence in Varadkar in its own time tomorrow, instead of leaving it to SF’s old slot.
But doing this means the vote can’t be deferred; must be taken on the day
This means that the Dáil would have to meet in the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD) tomorrow instead.
But, because the Dáil has to pre-agree its venue for each sitting - and no mention of CCD last week - TDs *must* convene in Leinster House first. Out of order to do otherwise.