Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

There was no public recruitment process and no advertisement. There was no transparency. It was not open to anybody else. There was no competition. There were no qualification criteria. There was no fairness whatsoever. This role was gifted to Katherine Zappone because she was a friend and because she had the mobile number of half a dozen Ministers. Cronyism is deeply corrosive in the running of a country. It creates a two-tier society and blocks the majority of citizens from applying for jobs at the upper reaches of our Government. An absence of competition also ensures that we will not have the best people for the jobs we need filled in this country. Freedom of information, FOI, legislation is in place simply to allow citizens and journalists to make government transparent. On this occasion, Government communications were deleted and FOI material was shredded. Ministers are designated individuals under lobbying law. Lobbying law pertains to the influencing of a Minister in the spending of Government money. This is very clear. The Taoiseach himself was on "Morning Ireland" and admitted that Katherine Zappone sought this job. There was a blizzard of texts. Lobbying law was clearly broken. This could be a watershed moment for this country. We could reform the political system in this country but to do so there must be consequences for wrongdoing. If there are no consequences, there will be no change. A couple of months ago, the Tánaiste leaked a confidential document. Today he is investigating a leak from his own Cabinet, allegedly from a Minister who is not even here. Every single junior party gets to a point in a coalition government at which they either hold the senior party to account or hitch their wagons to that senior party. If they do hitch their wagons to that senior party, they will be toast in the next election.

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