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

There are quite a number of questions there and I thank the Senator for that. On the initial one, that the narrative is being peddled that Katherine Zappone misunderstood what was on offer, the Senator asked me whether I spoke to Katherine recently. I rang Katherine Zappone on Sunday but it was a courtesy call to say the Department was going to release an extensive file on Monday. It was not a long conversation. She asked me what was being released and I went through the text messages she had sent to me that I was releasing. That was to give her the courtesy of letting her know that.

In terms of the text exchange with the Tánaiste, first of all, if I was trying to hide this exchange, why would I have raised it? I was the first person to raise this in the committee last week when I was asked the question by, I think, Deputy Cowen but maybe Senator Ardagh and others as well. I volunteered that information to try to be helpful. It was helpful that the Tánaiste subsequently published those texts, which he still had. The text he sent to me was: "Hi. Seeing Katherine Zappone on Wednesday. Do you know anything about her becoming our LGBT envoy?". It was not in the text that I was offering her a job. The Tánaiste was simply asking the question because he did not know anything about it. That backs up what I said, which is simply the truth, that the Tánaiste had no hand, act or part in this. He did not even know it was going on but Katherine Zappone had raised it with him and so he was asking me what was going on.

I did not have the benefit, when I spoke to the committee last week, of the text exchange between Katherine Zappone and the Tánaiste. I simply recollected that he had told me he was meeting Katherine Zappone and wanted to be up to speed. Last week I said, I think, that I did not recall the exact text of those exchanges. I think I said that twice actually because I wanted to cover the fact I was relying on memory. Certainly, the thrust of those texts are the same as what I outlined to the committee last week. I would like to have had those texts and I would have been more accurate, certainly, after the Tánaiste published them. I am glad to clarify that.