Results 5,681-5,700 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: I simply do not have-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: All I can say is that Katherine Zappone was in contact with my Secretary General because I had asked him to-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: If the Deputy would let me finish-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: It is not a surprise that Katherine Zappone had email and text message contact with the Secretary General, because I had asked him to finalise the arrangement-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: -----on the back of the advice of the Department. I do not know anything about Katherine Zappone's emails or what email address-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: I do not know the source of her email address. That is a simple and honest answer.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: The Deputy will have to ask Katherine Zappone about that matter.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: No, Deputy. I would like to respond to that accusation.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: That is a fair question.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: That is a fair question. The reason I did not delete the text messages from Katherine Zappone was because I wanted to be, first of all, absolutely transparent and they were still on my phone. As far as I was concerned, the conversation with Katherine Zappone, which was primarily around this role that we are now discussing, went on for quite a long time. I did not have an obligation to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: I am looking at one of my officials here and my understanding is there is nothing missing from the record. I suspect it probably should have gone straight from 93 to 95. I am not sure. If there is anything in that, we will come back to the committee in writing directly on it. Certainly, people are shaking their heads here in relation to that being an issue. Everything that we have has...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: 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...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: That is the main thrust of it. On lobbying, again, all I can do is say to the Senator what I experienced during this period. I saw the text messages that came from Katherine Zappone to me as from an enthusiastic person who wanted to get an update. I did not see it as lobbying. I did not feel any pressure and if I had, I probably would have responded to those texts and I did not. Instead,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: That is a very fair question. This was the final Government meeting before breaking for the summer and I was bringing six memorandums to Cabinet that day, I think, on a range of matters. There was a Brexit briefing and an update on the UN Security Council. There was a memorandum around the possibility of competing for a sports event and one on the appointment of ambassadors to key roles....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: There were a number of questions there. First, with regard to international practice, the paper of 29 March shows that Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK have a series of special envoys in a series of different areas, as do the United States and Canada. All the countries that are in the same foreign policy space as Ireland...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: Yes, that is correct.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: Certainly, I was advised around that particular incident. I handed my telephone over and got a replacement telephone during that period. Both of my Departments are very conscious of the security of telephones and data and the potential risk of hacking. It is not something I want to go into in any detail publicly, for obvious reasons, but that is an issue in which the Department has some...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: First, we are assessing this area now because of the controversy around it. Certainly, if a special envoy is to be appointed in this space, it will be done through an open competition whereby people's submissions will be invited publicly. The Taoiseach said that yesterday, and he is right.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: 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...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence (7 Sep 2021)

Simon Coveney: I did not respond to her on the Samantha Power issue at all. I did not think that was appropriate.