On Tuesday, Village magazine shared communications with RTÉ, The Irish Times and the TDs who were leading Dáil questions of Tánaiste Leo Varadkar yesterday. We here link to a PDF of what we shared. Beneath are the most important of these. Readers will make their minds up as to whether the material was effectively deployed and analysed by those media and in the Dáil. Meanwhile we will be releasing important new material in due course.
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Central to Varadkar’s defence to the allegations is the claim the document he leaked to Maitiú Ó Tuathail had been agreed by his government and the IMO and was already in the public domain. Varadkar’s argument however is contradicted by his own admission to Ó Tuathail that ‘there may still be some changes made’, to the document. Varadkar told Ó Tuathailto not take it as ‘gospel’
Ó Tuathail: ‘Leo constantly pulling strings for me’
It’s been asked whether sending the draft agreement was the only favour Varadkar did for his friend. Here Ó Tuathail, in a text message to Bowes, says, “Leo constantly pulling strings for me. You’ve no idea.” Ó Tuathail says he doesn’t want to “fuck that up” by making public where he received the leaked development
Ó Tuathail lobbies Harris in Twitter DM – Harris didn’t comply with request
On 10 April, 2019, Maitiú Ó Tuathail asks then Health Minister, Simon Harris, for a copy of the agreement in the unofficial channel of a Twitter DM. Harris says he’ll make enquiries but ultimately doesn’t comply, “I want to get it over the line, but will be unable to do so without a copy of the deal,” wrote Ó Tuathail. Varadkar then, between 11-16 April, leaked Ó Tuathail the document without consulting his Health Minister, who had refused the request
Ó Tuathail’s motivations: ‘destroy IMO’
Varadkar, along with his cabinet and party colleagues, has said the Tánaiste leaked the document “in the public interest”, as Varadkar’s statement put it. If this were the case, Varadkar’s decision to leak the document to Ó Tuathail is seriously undermined by the latter’s admission that he wanted to “destroy” the rival IMO.
