Pressure is mounting on Leo Varadkar to “come out of hiding” and explain his attendance at the Merrion Hotel function in the wake of the Katherine Zappone controversy.
David Cullinane, the Sinn Féin TD, said the disclosures over the past week were an example of “stroke politics” and called for a general election, saying he did not have confidence in the government.
“It’s again another example of doing favours for friends and again the government is mired in a scandal which is about cronyism,” he said. “I don’t believe that we’re going to get any substantial change from Fine Gael or Fianna Fail.”
Cullinane added: “I think the best thing that we can do is actually for the government to go, not for any one individual but for the entire government to go, and for a general election to take place.”
It emerged this week that Varadkar, the tánaiste, attended a private outdoor function of 50 people at the Merrion Hotel that was hosted by Zappone six days before she was appointed a UN special envoy, a role that she has now turned down.
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Varadkar said on Wednesday that he was “confident” coronavirus regulations had not been breached at the function. The attorney-general advised in a government statement that coronavirus regulations allowed for outdoor gatherings of up to 200 people.
Paul Murphy, the People Before Profit TD, and Peadar Tóibín, the leader of Aontur, have criticised the decision by politicians to attend the event, which has been compared to “Golfgate” — the controversial gathering of politicians and businessmen at a hotel in Galway last year.
Róisín Shortall, the co-leader of the Social Democrats, said yesterday that the government had “sacrificed its own public health guidelines to save the tánaiste’s political skin. This grubby little episode suggests there is a prevalent attitude, among an elite in Irish society, that there is one rule for the little people and another for them.”
Cullinane said yesterday that Varadkar’s actions had undermined the government’s public health advice. He said the tánaiste needed to explain why he attended the hotel function and the reasons for the attorney general’s intervention on Wednesday.
“He needs to make a statement as to why we’re now seeing a scrambling by government to retrospectively approve the guidelines or change the guidelines or interpret the guidelines to justify an event that took place,” he said.
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It followed an apology from Neasa Hourigan, the Green party TD, who said the government’s statement confirming that outdoor gatherings of up to 200 people were allowed was “incredibly unhelpful”.
Hourigan described the events of the past week as “a bit of a mess” and said that “the thing I’m sorriest about is the intervention of the attorney general.
“I think that was incredibly unhelpful,” she said. “I think the message that has gone out now is that it’s OK for 200 people to get together in a field and have a party.”
She told Newstalk radio: “There is a difference between the law and guidelines. And I think the only way we’ve managed to do things over the last 18 months is through consent, and through the cooperation of people.”
Hourigan said the government must clarify what the public health guidance is “not what we can get away with under the law”.
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Fáilte Ireland, which is responsible for issuing Covid-19 guidelines to the hospitality sector, met government officials yesterday to give clarity on the operation of outdoor events.
Adrian Cummins, the chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, said that the hospitality sector had lost a “huge amount of revenue” due to confusion over the industry guidelines. “It’s important businesses and society understand what is required in terms of rules/limits,” he said on Twitter.
A video has emerged showing an alleged breach of Covid-19 rules at a Co Kerry pub owned by Danny Healy-Rae, the independent TD. The video first surfaced on Snapchat and shows a disregard for pandemic guidelines including mask wearing and social distancing, while shirtless men are seen dancing inside the pub.
Healy-Rae, who appears in the videos, has declined to comment. He has previously criticised several pandemic regulations and said that he would not ask his staff to check customers’ vaccination status for indoor dining, as required by law.
