Katherine Zappone Envoy Gig

Jack Chambers, the boy wonder on this week (RTE radio 1) around 1.20pm, hopefully albeit doubtful, he might have more than to say about this debacle after a shockingly meek statement from Michael Martin yesterday who discussed "people taking personal responsibility"

Micheál clearly has decided to go for the 'give him enough rope' strategy. Risky in the extreme, as the falling body might take him out too.

There is a palpable air of public weariness of all these chaotic shennanigans.

Words escape me

A bit like being attacked by fluffy kitten's. The more I think about it, Michael is biding his time for retirement, pass the baton to Leo when his stint as Taoiseach is up, head to the back benches and have a peaceful period before fecking off. Only one slight problem, grass roots FF members getting more and more annoyed and a heave increasingly likely

Leo manages to be the subject of not one but two main articles on the front page of the Sunday Times, . One on the Garda investigation into him leaking a confidential document and the other on the Zappone affair and the leaks at cabinet.

On Varadkar vs. Simon Harris

On the latest Cabinet leaks and witch hunt to find the leaker a Fine Gael member said it

Fine Gael are now eating themselves alive. Varadkars interview on the 6.1 News trying to spin his way out of the government laws/regulations/guidelines/advice (take your pick) has completely backfired, no one is buying his excuses. Instead of just holding his hands up and telling the truth he reverted to type and went straight into spin mode by getting the Attorney General to give him political cover. He thought he would be a cute hoor and now its blown up in his face. It is actually hard to believe that Varadkar has no less than seven special advisers on massive salaries advising him but he still ends up in this mess, be it by his own ego or surrounding himself with yes men.

Next week should be interesting because there is no public appetite to be hearing Micheal Martin coming out and saying 'its time to move on', that wont wash at this stage.

As somebody said, 'If you think FG hate SF wait until you see how much they hate each other'. 😁

"We are here to celebrate our arrogance, our non advertised appointments and our ability to flout the rules."

They ignored incompetence for some reason.

Are you mad ?

An physical invite would be a paper trail, Katy is too cute to do that

If ever a headline says a political party goosed, it's this, I can name quite a few FF TD'S who'll be scratching heads this morning. Barely a mention of the actual appointment that started this, perhaps collective amnesia has set in.

"There Certainly all in this Together"

Yes the article and others have noted the deafening silence coming out of Alan Kelly's Mouth.

What would her getting a consultancy with the Un have to do with this? Would it have been a role paid for by the Irish Taxpayer?

If its funded by us, lets know more. If not then not really any of our business and not really relevant to anything.

Since Ivana was at the soiree, Labour has to keep their mouth shut.

Only reasonable or meaningful if it impacts us. If its through the UN then hardly any of our concern how a private appointment by the UN is carried out.

Honestly cannot see any real appointment being tied to an makey uppy one - more likely it was handy extra cash when she was in her actual role.

I would be shocked if we have anything to do with the potential other role and the opposition hasn't called it out yet.

I am all for full visibility when tax money is involved but demanding transparency on anything not funded by us is getting a bit big headed to be fair.

I can imagine that if she had a role lined up this envoy job would have been a nice bonus for her - I can imagine her just counting 60 of the days she worked in a real role and saying they cover her envoy role.

All in all a bit of a mess, but don't see much happening about it now. Few rule changes and review of envoys will most likely be the height of any change.

As much as i hate to say it, doing stuff in the absence of rules is sadly different to breaking rules. The lack of rules , transparency and clarity are the things we need to change and actually see change.