Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has weighed in behind embattled Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney and insisted he has not breached any Covid-19 regulations linked to the champagne party in his department. A week after the controversy emerged, Mr Coveney has finally conceded he did visit his department after a champagne celebration. The country was still under severe lockdown measures at the time of the Department of Foreign Affairs photograph, taken in June 2020. Mr Coveney said he “did not see the Covid breach from the earlier photograph” but admitted he was in the Department after the photograph of the champagne celebration was posted online. In his latest statement, Mr Coveney said Mr Burgess, who is now the Irish Ambassador to France and Monaco, admitted the mistake in holding the gathering when it arose in June 2020.

Source: Irish Independent January 05, 2022 22:28 UTC