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

I refer to my exchanges with Katherine Zappone. She texted me on 22 February, which is on the file, and she refers to USAID and the possibility of working with it on women's, girls', gender equality and LGBTQ issues. She went on to say that US President Biden had promised to appoint LGBT folks at high levels and so on. That was the first contact I had with her since I spoke to her briefly to wish her well when she was leaving Ireland many months earlier.

After that, I spoke to my Secretary General on 24 February and, at the end of a meeting which was dealing with other things, I said to him I had got a text from Katherine Zappone. I pointed out she was in New York. I asked him if he thought she could be an addition to our team in New York and if that would be a useful possibility. He was positive on that and said he wanted to think about it, so I said that was fair enough.

On 26 February, I had a missed call from Katherine Zappone. I called her back and said to her I had spoken to the Secretary General about whether she could play a useful role in New York. I made no mention of the special envoy role at that point because I did not know anything about it. A few days later my Secretary General came back to me to say the Biden Administration was moving ahead with the special envoy role. Afterwards I had a brief conversation with Katherine on that.