Katherine Zappone Envoy Gig

I doubt many TDs will lie to people in there area as, same with everything the names will come out somehow.

P.S Some TDs have confirmed attendance, 98 said they wernt at it (some say were invited though)

Why would it go to PAC - was there money from the Irish state involved ?

Who pays for the Envoy ?

Ah right - so you have made up your mind before any investigation !!! Lets do away with courts, the PAC, the legal system and just get on to all the Karen’s on Twitter to tells us what is right and wrong

pathetic

An annual equivalent is about 110k euros, so Id say 15k for 50 days work is significant. Another poster seems to think it would be taxed at 40%, I'm not convinced it would, maybe 20% being abroad (even though she doesnt seem to reside in Ireland). It's possible it might not even get taxed at all given the salary amount. It was always more about the expenses for her imo (as someone also said, she has form), but so do FG generally what with Coveney still explaining it away as if it it doesnt matter.

Im equally as pi$$ed about the potential this "job" had for expenses as I am for the fact that she invented it for herself and FG just signed off on it like it's not a big deal, it clearly isn't for them and their attitude stinks if that is their view on it.

As is often the case, some important points are getting lost in the weeds of semantics here.

To reiterate what appears to have happened, and why it is potentially a big ol' juicy scandal:

• Zappone hosts a gathering for political elites at a time when said elites are still twisting themselves into knots warning the rest of the country of the grave dangers posed by this virus. The gathering was either illegal or against guidelines. The elites are not concerned by such pedantic arguments anyway because only smelly proles are stupid enough to catch Covid, and the elites are too smart and important to suffer the day-to-day indignities of the restrictions that they expect the rest of the country to follow. Guidelines are for normies after all, not the big important boys and girls who invented them.
• A short while later, Zappone is quietly and conveniently appointed a totally non makey-upey job without open competition. Looks like the elite party was a successful attempt at currying favour from important peers. Chimpanzee societies do the same thing before political upheaval, as an aside.
• Word gets leaked that the hotel event took place, shortly prior to Zappones controversial appointment. Media fail to even attempt to join the dots. It's crazy to suggest that the hotel bach is in any way connected to said appointment.
• There is some initial fuss about the appointment not being OKd by the Taoiseach but then media loses interest.
• In the meantime, the Tánaiste writes to the Attorney General in an arse-covering exercise, who swiftly and un-suspiciously clarifies that no guidelines were breached and actually the limit for outdoor gatherings has been 200 people for ages. Nobody else in the entire country knew about this increased capacity change. Dancing and music are suddenly no longer illegal, except for at weddings.
• Just as the story is gaining traction again (on social media), the legacy media use diversion tactics: Hey look over there! The Healy-Rae's hosted several MASKLESS Covidiots in their pub!
• Diversion largely works. The public don't care too much about the hotel gathering anymore because the legacy media aren't telling them to care about it. A handful of people on social media keep the story going for another week or two but are labelled as work-shy "conspiracy theorists" and shinners. Twitter subsequently gets involved and deletes tweets with a certain hashtag to remove it from the list of trending topics.

Few questions I would ask if I was a journalist

1. Who was in attendance? In particular, which TDs attended and were any RTÉ employees on the guestlist?
2. Was public money used?
3. Did everybody in attendance need to produce a digital C-19 passport?
4. If C-19 regulations weren't followed, will the hotel in question face any fines?

Personally I don't see this story going away, despite the transparent attempts to bury it.

But I have no idea how journalists appear to have no interest in pursuing a story that has the makings of a government-endingdebacle that could usher in a general election.