Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, I give my Department an awful lot more credit than the Deputy does. She is essentially accusing my former Secretary General of lying as well, if what the Deputy has just outlined is her position. All I can say is that the sequence of events as they happened is as I have outlined them today. The FOI release backs that up. I was the one who mentioned a special envoy role to Katherine Zappone for the first time. She did not raise it with me and did not look for updates on that potential role until after the conversation I had with her. The conversation I had with her was triggered by two conversations I had with my Secretary General in relation to discussing whether she may have been of use to our team in New York. That is how it happened.