Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has refused to say whether he deleted text messages relating to the Champagne gathering that took place at Iveagh House in breach of public health guidelines in June 2020.
His department stated in response to a Freedom of Information request last week that a “comprehensive search” of Mr Coveney’s phone had found no messages pertaining to the incident, either from the time of the event or since it came to public attention at the end of last year.
However, it is known that a text message relating specifically to the Iveagh House gathering was received by Mr Coveney on December 29, 2021.
This would have fallen under the scope of the FOI request if it had been found during a search of his phone. His spokesman refused to answer when asked whether the minister had deleted text messages relating to the gathering, at which at least 20 department officials celebrated Ireland’s election to the UN Security Council with champagne while the country was under a strict national lockdown.
The same spokesman had previously confirmed that Mr Coveney received a text message relating to the event on December 29, the day after a ‘selfie’ taken at the party by then-secretary general Niall Burgess re-emerged.
Mr Coveney was reminded of this particular message last Friday in a query asking whether he had deleted texts about the Iveagh House gathering, seeing as it had not been found on his phone during the “comprehensive search”. He did not respond.
Last September, the Fine Gael deputy leader was criticised for deleting text messages relating to Katherine Zappone’s controversial appointment as a UN envoy, which led to the so-called ‘Merriongate’ affair.
After admitting that he had deleted crucial texts pertaining to the controversy, Mr Coveney told the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee that he erased the messages for storage reasons, but his spokesman later said the minister regularly clears his phone because it was previously hacked.
At that time, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said Mr Coveney’s deletion of texts was not “sloppy behaviour”, but was about “the minister deliberately erasing government records” and “failing to send them to his department for filing and storage.”
She described his actions regarding the deletion of text messages as “unacceptable” and said it demonstrated “breathtaking arrogance”.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin defended the foreign affairs minister in the Dail, but said that “any texts in relation to government business should not be deleted. I’ve made that clear to other government ministers”.
The freedom of information request seeking copies of all emails and text messages received by Mr Coveney in relation to the Iveagh House party since June 17, 2020 was submitted to the department on December 30 – one day after the text relating to the event was received by the minister.
An internal investigation into the Iveagh House gathering by Niall Burgess’s successor as secretary general, Joe Hackett, is due to conclude on Monday. Last week, it emerged that Mr Burgess had given the go-ahead for staff to gather “in the thick of it” to watch the UN Security Council vote together in breach of Covid-19 guidelines.
On Saturday, the department said that “no records” in relation to the freedom of information request had been deleted.
However, Mr Coveney’s spokesman confirmed that this statement was not on behalf of the minister, and refused to say whether he had erased texts in relation to the event.
