Katherine Zappone was made aware of the €109,000 appointment to a UN role by the Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney more than four months before the matter was agreed by Cabinet.
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney attended a Oireachtas Foreign Affairs committee investigation where he was questioned about his role in the scandal.
The Fine Gael minister was questioned on how Ms Zappone came to be selected for the post, how the post itself came about and how the proposed remuneration package was arrived at.
Zappone would have been paid a per diem rate based on a civil service salary of up to €109,000 as a Government envoy.
Documents sent by Mr Coveney’s department to the committee, seen by the Irish Examiner, show the time required for the job was estimated at up to 30 days during the initial six months with a “per diem payable based on principal officer scale”.
The matter is definitely not going away and Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney are under serious pressure as a result.
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