Leo the Leak

These four questions need now to be asked in the Dáil, as Leo Varadkar has not replied to Village‘s attempt to get answers. By Michael Smith. Since we live in a democracy lying to the Dáil is a resigning offence.  Village has made the case that the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has run to cover over his leak of the confidential IMO-negotiated contract to his mate. Meanwhile most though not all of the media have moved on to the next issue. Here are the questions I asked of the Tánaiste on Monday 16 November.  I annotate them below:  “Dear Tánaiste,Thank-you for the email I received on your behalf…on 13 November.It remains unclear which precisely of the alleged encounters referred to in https://villagemagazine.ie/at-least-10-times-not-2-or-3/  you have denied. Can you provide clarification?Are you still claiming that you were in Barcelona at a time that proves you could not have had any particular one of the ten alleged encounters with Dr Ó Tuathail; and if so can you please say when in 2019 you were in Barcelona?Can you please state whether Matt Barrett spoke to Dr Ó Tuathail on your behalf or otherwise, during the nine days you referred to in the Dáil, about the leak affair and/or its fallout; and whether during that period Mr Barrett spoke to Dr Ó Tuathail about the accuracy of the references to the encounters that were referred to in Village‘s statement, or about Dr Ó Tuathail denying them. Can you please say if you forwarded the brochure and any other correspondence you received by WhatsApp or otherwise from Dr Ó Tuathail promoting Community Hospital Ireland, as opposed to Community Health Ireland, on a private account, to an official government account. I would be grateful for a reply tomorrow 17 November to meet a deadline”. No reply was received. Here are explanations of the questions: 1) It remains unclear which precisely of the alleged encounters referred to in https://villagemagazine.ie/at-least-10-times-not-2-or-3/  you have denied. Can you provide clarification? [AS PART OF HIS EFFORT TO DENY LAWBREAKING THE TÁNAISTE CLAIMED THE PURPOSE OF LEAKING THE DOCUMENT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN TO ADVANCE THE INTERESTS OF HIS FRIEND MATT Ó TUATHAIL, PRESIDENT OF THE NAGP, AS HE WAS NOT A CLOSE FRIEND BUT SOMEONE HE WOULD MEET “TWO OR THREE TIMES A YEAR”.  VARADKAR CONJURED AN IMAGE OF  HIMSELF AS TAOISEACH SOWING HARMONY BETWEEN THE NAGP (AN ORGANISATION SOME OF WHOSE LEADERS MAY SHORTLY BE  PROSECUTED FOR THEFT AND CORRUPTION) AND THE IMO. VILLAGE TORPEDOED THIS DEFENCE WITH EVIDENCED ALLEGATIONS OF TEN MEETINGS IN 2019. IT SAID THAT IT DID NOT NEED TO PROVE ALL OF THESE FOR IT TO BE EVIDENT THAT THE NUMBER OF MEETINGS WAS QUALITATIVELY DIFFERENT – OF A DIFFERENT ORDER – FROM TWO OR THREE, ESPECIALLY WHEN NO NORMAL PERSON RECORDS ANYTHING MORE THAN A FRACTION OF THEIR SOCIAL ENGAGEMENTS WITH A FRIEND, ON WHATSAPP!  VARADKAR THEN SEEMS TO HAVE DISPROVED ONE MEETING, ON 30 JUNE 2019 – WHEN HE WAS IN BRUSSELS THE DAY AFTER HE, PASCHAL DONOHOE, SIMON HARRIS, KATE O’CONNELL TD AND OTHERS IN FINE GAEL HAD BEEN PHOTOGRAPHED MEETING Ó’TUATHAIL DURING 2019’S PRIDE FESTIVITIES.  WE ATTACH A NEW PHOTO OF O’TUATHAIL WITH HARRIS AND O’CONNELL THAT DAY.   CHAY BOWES RECEIVED TEXTS FROM Ó TUATHAIL SHOWING HE WAS UP VERY LATE [HE SAID HE FELT “FUCKED”] FOLLOWING PRIDE AND WAS EXPECTING TO MEET DONOHOE AND VARADKAR ON 30 JUNE. LIKE SOME MEETINGS PLANNED THE NIGHT BEFORE, IT CLEARLY DID NOT HAPPEN AS ENVISAGED.  MEANWHILE CHAY BOWES HAS UNEARTHED ANOTHER ALLEGED MEETING BETWEEN Ó TUATHAIL AND VARADKAR (AND HARRIS) – IN THE ROYAL HOSPITAL KILMAINHAM, ON 17/18 AUGUST 2019]. 2) Are you still claiming that you were in Barcelona at a time that proves you could not have had any particular one of the ten alleged encounters with Dr Ó Tuathail; and if so can you please say when in 2019 you were in Barcelona?  [IN HIS CRUCIAL RESPONSE TO THE MOTION OF CONFIDENCE IN HIM ON 10 NOVEMBER VARADKAR CLAIMED THAT MANY OF THE CLAIMS MADE ABOUT HIM “WERE TRUMPED UP OR MADE UP”. HE SAID VILLAGE’S ARTICLE “WAS JUST ONE EXAMPLE OF THIS.“IT ALLEGED TEN ENCOUNTERS, MANY OF WHICH SIMPLY DID NOT HAPPEN AND COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED AS I WAS IN BRUSSELS ON TWO OCCASIONS, BARCELONA ON ONE, OUT OF DUBLIN ON ANOTHER, OR DEMONSTRABLY DOING GOVERNMENT BUSINESS”.  THERE IS NO VERIFICATION HE WAS IN BARCELONA OR WITH WHOM HE WAS THERE, AND NO INDICATION BEING OUT OF DUBLIN OR ON GOVERNMENT BUSINESS PRECLUDED MEETING Ó TUATHAIL WHO HAS SAID HIS MEETINGS WERE TYPICALLY VERY INFORMAL.  3) Can you please state whether Matt Barrett spoke to Dr Ó Tuathail on your behalf or otherwise, during the nine days you referred to in the Dáil, about the leak affair and/or its fallout; and whether during that period Mr Barrett spoke to Dr Ó Tuathail about the accuracy of the references to the encounters that were referred to in Village‘s statement, or about Dr Ó Tuathail denying them. [VARADKAR  POINTEDLY TOLD THE DÁIL DURING THE CONFIDENCE MOTION THAT HE HAD NOT SPOKEN TO DR Ó TUATHAIL IN NINE DAYS, AFTER HE UNDERSTANDABLY SPOKE TO HIM ON THREE OCCASIONS AFTER VILLAGE‘S STORY BROKE.  THIS WOULD BE MEANINGLESS IF ANY ASSOCIATE HAD SPOKEN TO Ó TUATHAIL DURING THIS PERIOD. O’TUATHAIL IS A CLOSER FRIEND TO BARRETT THAN TO VARADKAR.  SO SOME OF THE CLOSENESS OF VARADKAR’S FRIENDSHIP COMES VIA THEIR MUTUAL CONNECTION WITH BARRETT.  THIS IS BECAUSE THE TWO WORKED TOGETHER IN ST VINCENT’S HOSPITAL AND WOULD GO FOR WEEKLY PINTS UNTIL THE PANDEMIC. IT IS ALSO THE CASE ACCORDING TO Ó TUATHAIL HIMSELF AND TO THE PROBING SUNDAY INDEPENDENT; AND INDEED IS SUGGESTED BY THE FACT THE ONLY PERSON MATT BARRETT FOLLOWED ON TWITTER WAS Ó TUATHAIL UNTIL VILLAGE’S STORY BROKE WHEN THE FOLLOW WAS TERMINATED – ONLY TO BE REINSTATED WHEN Ó TUATHAIL DISHONESTLY DISAVOWED HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH BOWES TO CONFIRM VARADKAR’S STORY; AND THAT BARRETT ISSUED A CONTEMPORANEOUS STATEMENT TO CHIME WITH Ó TUATHAIL’S STORY].  4) Can you please say if you forwarded the brochure and any other correspondence you received by WhatsApp or otherwise from Dr Ó Tuathail promoting Community Hospital Ireland, as opposed to Community Health Ireland, on a private account, to an official government account. [ON 5 NOVEMBER THE TÁNAISTE TOLD

We live in a democracy and a free press is supposed to be important. So why have the mainstream media been silent when Village, a small, serious, independent magazine and its whistleblower, Chay Bowes, have been threatened and bullied by perhaps the most powerful political party in the State, Fine Gael, and perhaps the most powerful man in the State, the Tánaiste, Leo Varadkar, past and future Taoiseach? A report in the  Business Post last Sunday, 8 November, by its respected Political Editor Michael Brennan, contained the following: “There have been mutterings on the Fine Gael side in government about whether Bowes has thought through what impact all of this might have on his healthcare businesses. But he said he was going to proceed with making a complaint to the Gardaí about Varadkar for leaking of the GP contract”. This seems to be intimidation of Bowes, probably primarily for saying he will lodge a criminal complaint. Intimidation is of course a crime. Section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1999 says that a person: “(a) who harms or threatens, menaces or in any other way intimidates or puts in fear another person who is assisting in the investigation by the Garda Síochána of an offence… (b) with the intention thereby of causing the investigation or the course of justice to be obstructed, perverted or interfered with, shall be guilty of an offence”. Who is doing the threatening?  “The Fine Gael side in government”.  That is more than just a group of hand-rubbing backroom boys.   The Fine Gael side.  In government. Outside of a banana republic Fine Gael must be asked to account for itself.  It must state who speaks for “the Fine Gael side in government”, it must ascertain if the intimidation is authorised at the top level and it must, in a democracy, remove anybody associated with these threats, all the way to the top of the organisation and its leader,  Mr Varadkar if necessary. The whole party is implicated because no attempt has been made by anyone in it to correct or investigate the Business Post report, in the three subsequent days. Naturally, Village will be making a complaint. Meanwhile, on two occasions now under the veil of Dáil privilege Mr Varadkar has abused Village magazine.  Twice he has called it a “fringe publication”.  There is no interpretation of the word, whose connotations all but the politically naïve know well, that would fit Village which is a left-wing, sometimes-though-not-always-dull, magazine that covers news, politics, environment, media, culture, and foreign affairs in a serious-minded and evidence-based way. Cursory perusal of the current magazine or of Village’s website would prove this to anyone who bothered. Varadkar also solemnly told the Dáil he would be deterred from  suing the magazine as that would be like suing someone on Twitter.  I am the author of the relevant pieces, and the magazine’s editor.  The magazine has never sheltered behind any of the normal protections for small investigative media: offshore corporate registration, editor a person of straw, etc. Most people who have sued Village magazine have sued the editor as well.  In my 12 years as editor Village has never paid anyone anything for defamation but I do have sufficient means to be a mark for the costs of litigation if we did lose a case. Varadkar’s allegation is inaccurate and an abuse of Dáil privilege.  He should withdraw it from the Dáil record.  More sinister still than the Tánaiste’s cynical mischaracterisation of the magazine, and his idle threats to sue, is that in the important Dáil debate of confidence in him on 10 November, he complained that Village is “unregulated”.  That suggests one of the country’s leaders considers that it should be regulated beyond the long-standing commitment to the Code of Conduct of the Press Ombudsman/Press Council clearly flagged on the inside page of the magazine. Believing, and implying in parliament, that a solution to your prolonged political discomfiture is “regulating” press that you do not like but choose not even to sue, is sinister in a democracy.  We heard a lot about the influence of Donald Trump yesterday.  Here is its definitive incarnation. It is extraordinary that none of the press or broadcast media have expressed any concern about this. Not one of the reports of the vote of confidence in Varadkar, whose importance was itself denigrated in much of the press, even mentioned it. But then Village’s evidence-driven pursuit of Mr Varadkar’s illegal leak of a confidential draft IMO-negotiated GP contract to his friend, the head of a rival organisation, has been distorted by some of the mainstream media, some of the most established of which have never referred to the WhatsApp screengrabs that grounded our reports – as they apparently do not have the wherewithal to assess their probative value. The screengrabs, it is Village’s case, showed a) criminality and b) lying, from the Tánaiste. Illustrating the distortion is some of the press coverage of our  9 November release of a trove of information from Varadkar’s friend O’Tuathail suggesting their relationship was closer than Varadkar stated in the Dáil.  That information  needed to be released in full.  I was involved with the publicisation of James Gogarty’s allegations which led to the establishment of the long-running planning tribunal (1997-2012).  Fully 19 years after he made substantiated allegations (to me and others) that were verified by the tribunal many of the substantiated allegations/findings were overturned in the High Court in 2014 on the sole ground that he should have been examined about allegations that did not stand up as well as those that did (as it was relevant to his credibility).   Village showed evidence, and stated, that Matt Ó Tuathail, like most people whose information highlights wrongdoing is not entirely reliable; and he has anyway latterly turned or been turned (a matter for another day) under pressure – definitively proving that unreliability.   Village simply suggested that evidence of ten meetings was enough to prove that the Dáil had been misled by Varadkar who had solemnly declared “two or three”, especially when it was clear that Village did not have, and could not he expected to have, information about the existence of all meetings between the two. Village put all the information into the public domain. That is a proper and fair approach when dealing with people whose information