Evidence in champagne party report doesn’t sustain case for the prosecution

The publication of a report into the so-called Department of Foreign Affairs champagne party has not stilled the political ruckus over the June 2020 incident.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin faced further questions in the Dáil on Tuesday while Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and his secretary general Joe Hackett have a visit to the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee to come.

Sinn Féin and other Opposition parties called for another investigation, this time an “independent” one. The Hackett report, Sinn Féin insisted, was “whitewash”. They wanted Coveney in the frame.

He was there, said Paul Murphy of People Before Profit, just 90 minutes after the “champagne corks popped”.

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Coveney has been under fire of late and the Opposition are determined to keep him in their crosshairs.

The Taoiseach displayed his new-found preference for taking the fight to Sinn Féin by embarking on a round of whataboutery in relation to the regulating-busting funeral of Belfast republican Bobby Storey a few weeks after the department drinks.

This enraged the Sinn Féin deputies, and the Ceann Comhairle had to threaten to suspend the Dáil amid the roaring and shouting. As the pandemic recedes, it appears nature is healing.

Younger generation

The report by Hackett, who was only appointed secretary general last year and is of a younger generation than his predecessor Niall Burgess, surprised some people in the firmness of its findings.

There had been, he said, a “serious breach of social distancing guidance” in the department on the night of the UN Security Council vote.

Importantly, though, he found there was no evidence that “statutory rules” were broken and there had been considerable efforts to maintain compliance with Covid-19 guidance in the way the working arrangements were put together. But the breach of the guidelines, he said, inflicted damage on the department, and gave rise to public concern.

Burgess - at whose door the blame is laid almost entirely – agreed to make a contribution of €2,000 to Covid-19 charities, while three other senior officials present have agreed to make €1,000 contributions.

Voluntary actions

These are not, it should be added, “fines”, but rather voluntary actions which the officials concerned were under no obligation to make. But presumably they, like everyone else in the Government, want the whole thing to go away.

They might have to wait a while for that. The champagne headlines, though the report refers only to “sparkling wine”, are too good for the Opposition to ignore and too tasty for the media to resist.

And the Government discomfort is unmistakable. A partial mea cupla is one of the most difficult political manoeuvres to perform. But sooner or later, you’d have to think, a sense of perspective will have to reassert itself. The comparison between the events in Iveagh House and the merry-go-round at 10 Downing Street – for all its rhetorical utility – is not sustainable in reality. And it’s not like there aren’t more important things happening in the world.

If the department was really flouting the rules on a regular basis, the public furore would be justified and irresistible. But the evidence assembled by Hackett’s report doesn’t sustain the would-be case for the prosecution.