MINISTER FOR FOREIGN Affairs Simon Coveney said the gathering at his department was “a serious mistake that shouldn’t have happened” after a review published last night found that it was a “serious breach” of Covid guidelines.

The review into the gathering, conducted by Foreign Affairs Secretary General Joe Hackett, said it has “caused offence” and that then secretary general Niall Burgess was “largely responsible for facilitating the breach of social distance guidance that occurred”.

It subsequently ordered Burgess to make a €2,000 donation to a Covid-19 charity, while three other officials are to also make a €1,000 donation to a charity providing assistance to people affected by the virus.

These officials “did not actively facilitate the breach of public health measures,” the review notes, but adds that they accept they “could have done more to try to prevent this breach”.

The review does conclude that the 25 staff working in the Department on the night were “conducting essential business on behalf of the Department” and their presence was “both essential and appropriate”.

Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, Coveney said the report is clear that “there was a serious breach of Covid guidelines at the time”, but he said it’s also important to “outline the context of what happened here”.

“This was not an organised gathering. This was people working in the workplace. But after the results of the vote came through from New York and Ireland was elected to the Security Council, people came together for a photograph in celebration for about a minute. That’s pretty clear in the report,” he said. 

He also said that it’s clear from the report that the Department of Foreign Affairs was taking Covid guidelines and restrictions very seriously “in terms of people working from home”.

“There was an awful lot of preparations from a Covid guidance perspective to allow people to come into work this day, which was 17 June 2020, in order to work on getting elected to the Security Council. I don’t want to make excuses for it, but I think it’s important,” he said. 

Asked if there should be consequences following the publication of the review, Coveney said: “I think the consequences for the then secretary general have been significant, actually.

“There’s been a lot of public commentary, a lot of media coverage of this issue. He’s been asked to make a financial donation of 2000 euros, so you know, I think from a reputational perspective, and from a public focus, a very serious consequence happened,” he said.

Independent investigation

Sinn Féin has called for an independent investigation into the gathering as the party feels the internal review is “insufficient”. 

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, the party’s finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty said the Taoiseach needs to establish an independent investigation into the gathering. 

“We said long before this report was published that this report wouldn’t be sufficient, it wouldn’t deliver accountability, and that is exactly what we’ve seen,” he said.

The review found “no evidence” that public health guidance was breached when the then Tánaiste Simon Coveney returned to thank the officers after Ireland won the UN Security Council seat around 45 minutes after the photo was taken.

He stayed for approximately 15 minutes.

Doherty said an independent investigation “needs to look at the role of Simon Coveney in relation to all of this”. 

“The Minister knew that night of the serious breach. His judgement has to be part of this report because he did nothing. He decided not to tell anybody. He didn’t alert the media. He didn’t alert any authorities. When he was questioned about this here, he did nothing,” he said.

“He said he felt that he didn’t need to follow up on this and, as I said, what he did was then set up an internal investigation that even people within his own ranks says is insufficient.”

 But speaking later on RTÉ, Coveney said that he did not see the need for any further investigation into the matter.

“This shouldn’t have happened. This was a moment of celebration that was careless. That was a serious breach of Covid guidelines,” he said.

“I can totally understand why people looking at this photograph would be very annoyed, given the sacrifices that they themselves and their families have made over the last few years.”

Asked on RTÉ radio why action was not taken at the time, Coveney said: “Mainly because I trusted my secretary general. I wasn’t there when this breach of guidelines occurred.”

Contains reporting by Press Association.