Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am very sorry about this whole affair. The Tánaiste is passing off this saga as if it was some sort of informal contact. This was a confidential document about a €210 million agreement. The rules and regulations that the Tánaiste has apparently broken were there for a reason. One of those reasons was to maintain confidence in the political system. Is this confidence now broken? People negotiating should be able to do so without feeling they are being stabbed in the back by the leaking of their positions, which is exactly what the Tánaiste did.

I believe the actions of the Tánaiste undermine all future negotiations between groups and Government. This in turn causes major damage to the State. Whether the Tánaiste gained personally is totally and absolutely irrelevant; it does not actually matter. Can the Tánaiste be trusted in the future? I return to a question the Tánaiste was asked earlier. Is it a practice of the Tánaiste when he is at a meeting, whether that is Cabinet or an agreement like he was dealing with in these negotiations, to be on his phone sending out messages from a meeting divulging the positions of the people negotiating?

To be honest, I remember a certain time going back to 2016 when the Tánaiste could not be kept off his phone and when people would leave a negotiating table and go outside and we would learn more about what went on during those negotiations then we did from being inside the room. That is a fact and I do not get pleasure out of saying it. I believe that is unacceptable. It is not a way for a Taoiseach, a Tánaiste or a Minister to conduct themselves. The Tánaiste knows I get no satisfaction whatsoever from what has happened or what is going on here this evening. I am sorry that we are where we are, but it is the Tánaiste who brought us here.

See this speech in context