To forget to mention something once might be an understandable oversight. For it to be forgotten twice smacks of a strategy, especially when the matter left unsaid has all the explosive potential of political dynamite. On Tuesday, the morning of the cabinet’s last summer meeting, The Irish Times reported on its front page that Simon Coveney, the minister for foreign affairs, would be seeking approval from his ministerial colleagues for a litany of appointments in the diplomatic corps. Martin Fraser, whose extended tenure as the government’s secretary-general is due to expire shortly, would become Ireland’s ambassador in London while Niall Burgess, his counterpart in the Department of Foreign Affairs, would become the new ambassador in Paris.
Other personnel switches involved postings to the UN, Washington, Rome and the Hague. The report said that Coveney was also going to ask the cabinet to approve plans to open four new overseas missions, including a consulate in Lyon to enhance Franco-Hiberno trade in the aftermath of Brexit. It even mentioned that Coveney would be giving ministers a progress report on Ireland’s bid to host the America’s Cup yacht race in 2024.
The level of detail in the newspaper report was striking. Clearly, someone had gone to considerable trouble on Monday to give a blow-by-blow briefing to The Irish Times on the bundle of memos Coveney would be bringing to the cabinet meeting the next day. Short of which brand of chocolates the designated ambassadors will be serving at their soirées, no detail was left uncovered — with the exception of one item. There was no mention of the appointment of Katherine Zappone, the Fine Gael minister’s former government colleague, to a new position in New York of special envoy for freedom of opinion and expression.
When Coveney broached the appointment at the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, it was the first the taoiseach Micheál Martin had heard of it. Zappone’s job had not been mentioned at the routine meeting of ministers’ advisers, where items for the cabinet agenda are agreed. The taoiseach expressed his displeasure at Fine Gael’s failure to signal the appointment in advance and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan subsequently said he was unhappy about it, too. Yet the ministers collectively approved it.
Afterwards, the Fianna Fail leader said Fine Gael’s silence on Zappone’s €30,000-plus-expenses two-year assignment in New York was “an oversight” and it was time to move on. And then the ministers departed on holiday in the expectation it would all be forgotten by the time the Dail resumes in September.
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It is a matter of debate whether it was by accident or design that the appointment went unmentioned both in The Irish Times and at the meeting of advisers. Coveney has said it was “a genuine mistake” that the appointment was not communicated to other ministers’ advisers, and his own party colleagues did not find out about it until “20 minutes before the cabinet meeting”. When he finally spoke publicly about it on Friday, three days after the blunder surfaced, the Iveagh House minister sounded more than mildly miffed with media commentary on the matter.
Yet if he wants forgiveness for a genuine mistake, Coveney might, in turn, forgive the public for being sceptical, as his party has quite a reputation for looking after its own.
In the fledgling days of this government last summer, Varadkar secured an aide de camp for himself and a state car for Coveney, who had been the tanaiste. Before the Dail’s 2020 summer holiday, TDs voted for special pay rises for super-junior ministers.
It was during that summer recess that questions emerged about the circumstances in which the previous attorney-general, Seamus Woulfe, had been appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. Having been Fine Gael’s legal adviser in government, Woulfe was catapulted straight to the highest bench in the land without having any judicial experience and despite three existing judges having expressed interest in the job. Woulfe’s was the only name submitted by the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board. It transpired that in her first week as the minister for justice, Helen McEntee had asked her officials to prepare a memo for cabinet recommending Woulfe’s appointment.
Fine Gael has proven itself well able to look after its friends. In 2014, arts minister Heather Humphreys appointed Donegal businessman John McNulty to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. McNulty just happened to be Fine Gael’s proposed candidate in a Seanad by-election, up for a seat on the cultural and educational panel. Involvement with an arts institution would have boosted his credentials.
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The controversy that ensued proved a turning point in how appointments to public boards are made, leading to legislation providing for public competition. That, however, remains a work in progress and some jobs remain in the gift of politicians. Senior judges are still treated exceptionally. Last November a report by the Group of States Against Corruption, a Council of Europe monitoring body with 50 members, stated that Ireland’s judicial appointments system is still vulnerable to political interference, with the danger that the best and most qualified candidates might not be selected.
In the case of Zappone’s appointment, Coveney and Varadkar have asserted that special envoys are not chosen by public competition and that it is a minister’s prerogative to choose the appointee. The rationale seems to be that the role is relatively low-paid and part-time. This is a spurious argument. If someone is being chosen to represent Ireland, especially in a role preaching the country’s commitment to principles such as free speech, the process to select the best candidate should be rigorous and comprehensive.
While Zappone has many admirers, she has critics too. Some of them are to be found among survivors of mother and baby homes who were unhappy with her handling of the legacy investigations. Others are in her former Dublin South-West constituency, where she lost her seat last year.
The crux of this controversy is not that Zappone will be paid up to €15,000 a year before tax — which is likely to be deducted in the US where she has returned to live — although there are many NGO workers who would be glad of that money. Nor is it about Zappone’s ability to do the job, the mechanics of which remain something of a mystery. This is about the unacceptability of any government minister having the unregulated power to appoint an acquaintance to a role on behalf of the Irish people.
Nobody is always perfect. And the judgment of no government minister is always perfect. Ergo, a transparent system of appointments for everyone, whether judge or envoy, is essential and is something the Dail should not forget when it returns from the beach in September. Maybe if we had an appointments system based on transparency, accountability and equality, Ireland would have some moral authority to preach its principles to the rest of the world.
