St Valentine said celebrate the day of love on the 14th or 15th or 16th of February...at least that's what Teleflorist believe.

Never in my life have I seen a company go out of its way to ruin a happy occasion, they've actually spent money advertising their delivery service and encouraged people to purchase immediately to ensure delivery on the 14th of February..... Before slapping on some fine print that deliveries may take up to two days.

I'm not sure of any special occasion where it would be acceptable to receive a gift two days after the delivery date, certainly not birthdays, mothers day, or valentines day. It would put me off ordering flowers from them for my own funeral. For all I know they could be waiting to see what flowers are left at discount rates before they ship them out.

This kinda of chance your arm online service amounts to nothing more than a scam. It truly is a swindle to mislead people into thinking they'll get a gift on a specific date while adding on some small print to keep them out of trouble (legally speaking).

Teleflorist have a host of awful reviews, which like every bad purchase I've made I only checked retrospectively. A sample of reviews which matched my experience exactly read:

Irish Politics was rocked by another scandal this year, dubbed Zapponegate, after former Minister Catherine Zappone successfully lobbied the current government for a position in the UN that didn't yet exist. 

There was a motion of confidence in Simon Coveney, who arranged the appointment, and the government successfully stood by their Minister. 

However the debate once again illustrates how low the bar is in Irish politics, it proves that just about anything goes in the land of shinnanigans, where even the most talented and astute politicians do favours for their friends.

What's most troubling is the amount of people in government who believe this behaviour is excusable, justifying their position by balancing an act of  corruption with a history of good merit. 

The outcome is that there is no right and wrong in politics, instead good deeds and apologies allow politicians to craft strong PR profiles whilst looking after their friends. 

A summary of the motion of Confidence in Simon Coveney:


Micheal Martin – Taoiseach (FF)
A motion seeking the removal of a member of Government is a serious matter. Since the foundation of the State, Dáil Éireann has held that these motions are the most serious that can be tabled. They are supposed to mark an important statement on fundamental policy failures or a serious legal issue. The sad reality is that the issue of confidence in the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence before the House this evening has nothing to do with any of this. It has nothing to do with seeking to protect the State or assert the rule of law.

The creation of this role and the attempt to appoint an individual to it was handled carelessly and badly. As the House will be aware, the Minister has apologised to me, his ministerial colleagues, the Oireachtas and the public on a number of occasions for his handling of the matter. He has accepted that I should have been informed of the proposal in good time and that the procedures followed were unacceptable. Procedures that were not properly followed were strengthened and where they were missing have been introduced.

There is important work to do in the Department of Foreign Affairs and the errors that were made have been addressed.

There has been full transparency, and every reasonable question has been responded to. Procedures have been tightened to ensure that this will not happen again. The Minister has apologised and I have accepted his apology.

Eamon Ryan (GP – Minister for the Environment)
The public service job is to pull up Ministers and say, "Hold on a second here. We have to follow right and due process." As I can see, however, from listening to the Oireachtas committee hearings and elsewhere, the Departments had a similar view to the Minister's in this case; that is, that Ms Zappone would be a good person for this role

Mary Lou McDonald (SF Leader)
The Minister sought to make up a job for a friend and former colleague and, when caught red-handed, he went about covering his tracks. He destroyed records he was obliged to keep under law and twice fed a cock-and-bull story to a committee of the Oireachtas. This is by any standard an abuse of office.

The deluded response from the Taoiseach as Leader of the Government this evening is proof positive that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have held power for far too long. The cronyism they now so loudly defend is precisely the brand of culture that has squandered the hopes of generations.

Matt Carty (SF)
A former Minister wanted a job that would get her access within the UN and her Fine Gael friends bent over backwards to make it happen. The Minister made up a job that was not necessary and he expected Irish taxpayers to pay for it. He allowed Katherine Zappone to draft her own job description, deleted information he was legally obliged to protect and wasted his Department's resources and staff time to justify all those actions retrospectively. He brought the appointment to Cabinet without first informing his coalition partners, but they signed off, probably in the knowledge that at some point in the future they would want to do a favour for one of their friends because that is how Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil do business.

Appointments to public bodies, right up to the Supreme Court, are decided not by what you know but who you know. Public finances are spent and policy decisions are made on the basis not of what is in the best interests of workers and families but of who has access and who is on the inside track.

Brendan Howlin (Labour)
Katherine Zappone, actively sought a role after leaving office, initially with USAID by seeking an introduction to Samantha Power, and contacted her former Government colleagues to that end. Subsequently, she sought a role with the United Nations as an Irish special envoy. The text messages of 26 February from Ms Zappone to the Minister, Deputy Coveney, in response to his phone call to her was a checklist of her qualifications for the job. Her text message of 4 March was a clear appreciation of being offered the role and sought the specifics of her appointment duration. There is simply no other way of reading those text messages. The Minister denies he made the job offer in late February and does not see Ms Zappone's communications as lobbying, and therein lies the difficulty. He cannot accept that in response to a request from a former ministerial colleague, he created a new position without reference to his partners in government and offered it to her.

Leo Varadkar (FG)
Simon is someone with a deep commitment to human rights and he has put that commitment at the centre of our foreign policy, whether it is in the Middle East, Afghanistan or in the Mediterranean during the refugee crisis.

We made mistakes when it came to the proposed appointment of former Minister Katherine Zappone as special envoy, and he and I have acknowledged and apologised for our mistakes in that regard.

Heather Humphreys (FG)
As someone who comes from just outside Clones, a few miles from the Border, I know the genuine fear that existed in communities at the prospect of a hard border returning to this island. There was one person more than anybody who fought on Ireland's behalf to ensure that did not happen. That was Simon Coveney

John Brady (SF)
He has used his position as a senior Minister, alongside his party colleagues, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, to make up and offer a job to a former colleague on the mooch for a cushy number that would provide access to the corridors of power within the UN.

Gary Gannon (SD)
The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has had multiple occasions on which to set the record straight on the botched appointment of Katherine Zappone. Each time his explanation has stretched the truth to the point of annihilating it.

The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has asked us to believe that not only did Dr. Zappone misapprehend the job offer that had been made on 4 March, but she also misconstrued a start date. Dr. Zappone's text message to the Minister, Deputy Coveney, is clear: "You had mentioned June as a start date." The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has told us that this explicit statement from Dr. Zappone is a misunderstanding and her earlier exuberance about the "incredible opportunity" she had been offered was pre-emptive.

Every person involved in this saga understands that power and access to it are their own form of currency. Tonight, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party Members want us to believe that a highly connected person who was found to be contacting and influencing senior Ministers and diplomatic staff in the awarding of a prestigious job does not amount to lobbying. Beyond that, the Tánaiste tried to diminish the story in early August by saying that a salary of €15,000 was not significant. Tonight, the Taoiseach described the role as being part time.

Neale Richmond (FG)
I have been fortunate over the past four years to work extremely closely with the Minister as this State faced one of the gravest challenges of a generation, the threat of Brexit, the threat of a return of a hard border and the devastation of so many vital industries. Throughout that period, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, stood up, stood particularly tall and defended the interests of Ireland and its people North and South.

Richard Bruton (FG)
Simon made a mistake, for which he has been fully accountable. His integrity is absolutely beyond question.
Katherine Zappone is not a crony when it comes to defending LGBT rights and history will show that.

Josepha Madigan (FG) 
The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has represented this country with distinction on the international stage. He has stood firm in the interests of everyone on this island, North and South.

Paul Murphy (PBP/Solidarity)
It is quite striking that amid all the praise of the Minister, Deputy Coveney, as a great statesman and everything else, there has been an absence of a repetition by the Government of the detailed narrative that he put forward to cover up clear cronyism. I think that is because to simply lay out fact after supposed fact would reveal how ridiculous this is.

He claimed that no job was offered until July, despite a text message from Katherine Zappone stating, "Thank you so, so much for offering me this incredible opportunity." That was before the job specification was even written and she obviously had a hand in writing that later. The Minister then claimed that he deleted the message about this because his phone was running out of space. I think the Minister has an iPhone, if not a high-end Android. They can contain approximately 350 million messages. I am sure he is a popular man and receives many text messages but that was incredible.

It is clearly a breach of the Freedom of Information Act to delete text messages between a Minister and the Tánaiste relating to the appointment of someone to a Government position. Why does any of this matter? This cronyism, which is being covered up, is not an accident or a bug. It is a feature of how capitalism, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael operate.

Mairead Farrell (SF)
The events of today have been dictated by Zapponegate, another occasion when public standards and ethics were thrown into the bin

I am no legal expert, but section 52 of the Freedom of Information Act is written with the kind of admirable clarity that does not require a legal background to understand. It states that "a person ... without lawful excuse and with intention to deceive destroys or materially alters a record shall be guilty of an offence and be liable on summary conviction to a class B fine".

Paschal Donohoe (FG)
There are 145 reasons that charge does not stand up tonight, which are the 145 appointments made by the Government with the assistance of the semi-State body, the Public Appointments Service, that advises the Government on appointments that are made to leading positions in semi-State bodies.

We have acknowledged what went wrong in that process, as he has. As other Deputies have said, when the long hours needed to be put in to defend our country on Brexit and to put together the proposition that led to the backstop, when a political crisis - how we could respond to Brexit - emerged, nobody did more and nobody worked harder with more integrity, patriotism and competence than Simon Coveney. If you are going to make the charge about a single point, and I hope all who are making this charge have records of perfection, unblemished records they can stand over, let us look at the man, his track record and his character.

Barry Cowen (FF)
The envoy appointment fiasco represented a failure of leadership and collective responsibility at the heart of the coalition. What has made the whole business such a sorry tale is that there was absolutely no public appetite, no demand, for any such envoy to be appointed. It was easy then for the public to conclude or to perceive that this was a set of insiders looking after one of their own.

My membership of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party and my commitment to modernise its aims and goals from within are an example that will not be compromised or undermined by the obvious yet understandable political gamesmanship we see here this evening from Sinn Féin.

Cathal Crowe (FF)
We have full confidence in him. It is the process that got us to this point, which has us very annoyed. We have confidence in him. It is the process that has been wrong.

Pearse Doherty (SF)
Let us call a spade a spade. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has been caught red-handed offering a salaried job, paid by the taxpayer, to a friend. He has been caught using the time and resources of his Department to reverse-engineer that role. He has been caught covering his tracks and destroying records and communications pertaining to official Government business, thereby making a mockery out of the freedom of information legislation. He has been caught misleading the committee to which he is answerable and then concocting a story that stretched all credulity, expecting the committee and the public to swallow it.

Cathal Berry (Ind)
The people I represent do not want a new defence Minister who would come in here with brand new bright ideas and kick the can down the road for another four or five years. They need action and they need it now because our armed forces are in crisis.

Michael Lowry (Ind)
The appointment of Katherine Zappone was mismanaged from the start. It has damaged the perception of Government competence and left the door open for legitimate criticism.

He has admitted that things could, and should, have been done differently. The Minister has apologised for his mistakes. His error of judgment in this instance is not in keeping with his long-standing political character. Deputy Coveney has been always cautious, careful and prudent in his actions and commentary on political issues. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, is known for his integrity and commitment, which has been flawless over the years.

Peadar Toibin (Aontu)
There was no public recruitment process and no advertisement. There was no transparency. It was not open to anybody else. There was no competition. There were no qualification criteria. There was no fairness whatsoever. This role was gifted to Katherine Zappone because she was a friend and because she had the mobile number of half a dozen Ministers. Cronyism is deeply corrosive in the running of a country. It creates a two-tier society and blocks the majority of citizens from applying for jobs at the upper reaches of our Government. An absence of competition also ensures that we will not have the best people for the jobs we need filled in this country. Freedom of information, FOI, legislation is in place simply to allow citizens and journalists to make government transparent. On this occasion, Government communications were deleted and FOI material was shredded.

Marian Harkin (Ind)
Many mistakes were made and they all arose from the premise that a former Minister could lobby the two most senior Fine Gael Ministers, the Tánaiste and an ambassador for a job that at that point in time did not formally exist. This, it seems, is how business was conducted in the allocation of similar, existing posts up to that point. It was not transparent or accountable.

The colour of the card for the Minister should be yellow, not red. Nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes.

Hildegarde Naughton (FG)
As colleagues have stated here this evening, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, is a politician of vast experience, ability and integrity. He has been deservedly praised for his careful handling of Brexit and his relationships with the EU and its institutions. He has helped to ensure that Ireland's interests and the protection of the Good Friday Agreement were at the heart of the Brexit negotiations.

Simon Coveney (FG)
I want to say to every one of my colleagues in this House but, in particular, to my partners in government, that I regret that this issue has distracted from the important work we have been trying to do and I regret the mistakes made by me in advance of the Cabinet decision and subsequently in terms of not clearing these issues up earlier. I have apologised to the Taoiseach and to my colleagues.

I have been in politics for 23 years and in government for more than a decade and every day has been a privilege. I have made mistakes on that journey but I have never had my integrity questioned in the way it has been in the past month, leading to this debate. Ironically, in recent years I have worked closely with many of those who have now chosen to table a motion of no confidence in me. I have worked with them on Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol, preventing Border infrastructure re-emerging on this island, restoring the devolved institutions in the North, reconciliation and trying to find a way to deal with the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland and maintaining North-South co-operation through it all. All of those difficult achievements required trust. They required respect and an absence of cynical party politics to get important things done. 

The Dáil divided: Tá, 92; Níl, 59; Staon, 0.

The final tweets of John McAfee

Maybe we’re all going a little lock down crazy but it seems like the people in positions of responsibility don’t know the difference between right and wrong. The Beacon CEO providing vaccines to the staff of St Gerard’s Catholic School in Bray, where his children attend, not only stunk of nepotism but also of total disregard for the thousands of people who could have more easily been offered the doses. It leaves you begging the question if anyone in power is motivated by the common good anymore, or are the all corrupt to the bone? 

One of the worst things about this incident is that the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, appeared on the six one news and declared there would be no consequences here, as blocking the HSE from delivering the vaccine to the Beacon would be like cutting off our nose to spite our face. Again doing the right thing hurts sometimes, it’s tough love, and for a minister to appear on the national broadcaster and state that a little corruption is needed to grease the wheels is probably one of the most outlandish things you can hear in a western country, this alone should have consequences. Sometimes we’re more like Craggy Island than a sophisticated member of the EU. The morning after, perhaps after he realised what he said out loud, or maybe he got an ear wagging from the Co-Taoiseach, Donnelly issued a statement announcing that he’s asked the HSE to suspend vaccine operations at the Beacon.

The episode didn’t wash well with people though; it holds a mirror up to Irish society, in what Sinn Fein TD John Brady called ‘privilege looking after privilege’. Needless to say it has resonated with people and there were hundreds of tweets yesterday expressing opinions, here are some of those messages:

Anyone saying that the alternative was to dump them can absolutely get in the sea. There are Cohort 4 cancer patients being treated in the hospital who have not been vaccinated. This is beyond despicable. @Julie_ODonoghue 

Honestly can’t wrap my head around how not one of the people involved in those Beacon vaccinations didn’t stop for two seconds and think ‘Hmmm, this isn’t right.’ That’s what you pay for, I guess @SineadOCarroll  
 
“Leftover” vaccines is the PR spin word rich people use when they “steal” vaccines from those that desperately need them @paddycosgrave 

Really interested to see what Board members of the Beacon hospital think of the scandal. They include former Taoiseach Brian Cowen and former AIB boss Colm Doherty. Let’s see what they have to say. @ipkehoe 

Beacon hospital could try google maps? - Schools (at least 2 special schools en route) - GP surgeries with lists of vulnerable patients - Dental Surgeries (many dentists have not yet been vaccinated) @sharonlambert0 

They are treating the vaccines like All Ireland tickets @SamDeBrun 

Just heard a TD’s office got a call today from a 77-year-old, offering to give up his own vaccine in favour of his 73-year-old wife who is a cancer patient. The HSE told him, “that’s not how it works.” The Beacon story today has people apoplectic. @gavreilly 

My mother is in category 4 and is a patient in the Beacon hospital undergoing ongoing treatment for cancer. They’ve been unable to give us any information on when she’ll get the vaccine. @aoifstokes  

St Gerard's School is 10km from the Beacon Hospital, as the crow flies. There are 10 schools for children with special needs that are closer to the Beacon, than St Gerard's in Bray. There are over 21 nursing homes closer to the Beacon, than St Gerard's in Bray @KieranCuddihy
 
The vaccine situation in the beaconhospital is akin to a stolen life-ring or stolen defibrillator. For the elderly and vulnerable who are still holding out for their turn a stolen vaccine could very easily become a stolen life @FoghornMurphy 

Mortified if I was a teacher from St Gerards school and I took the vaccine @minnyshell

Lainey Molnar has taken social media by storm. Her drawings depict the way the world perceives women as opposed to the way a lot of real women actually are.

I’ve always been honest and transparent about my mental health journey, especially after being diagnosed with bipolar and beating the illness after stepping on the way of spirituality, lightwork and finally happiness. 

Can we make mass media stop making us feel like the only way to deal with periods is pretending they don't exist. There are hundreds of millions of us bleeding every few weeks and especially for someone like me, who gets excruciating cramps and spends days crying in the fetal position guzzling pain killers. Its not very inspiring to to see women in ads giggling in white outfits. Leakage is usually the least of my concerns. Its part of life and not shameful, we can talk about it, we can go through the symptoms without suppressing them and we should be able to choose a tampon/pad/cup brand without them making us feel inadequate. 

Life choices don’t range from wrong to right based on societal expectations. The last 30 or so years the world turned upside down - the internet, social media, dating apps, remote work, digital nomads, startups, cheap air travel, EU, globalization, and the cracking of the glass ceiling raised generations of women whose priority isn’t marriage or children. We are the 30-something Lost Boys, half of our friends our age buy houses and raise families and the other half is still at school, figuring themselves out. There’s a constant pressure of missing out on something and the constant validation of freedom. 

On Tuesday 10th of November there was an historic motion of no confidence in the sitting Tainiste and leader of Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar. An unusual event in Irish politics that won’t be forgotten too easily.

What brought this about is a character named Chay Bowes disclosed a series of WhatsApp messages to Village Magazine, frustrated by what he described as vested interests subverting the common good. Village magazine didn’t hold any punches, publishing a story about the leaking of a confidential document.

The Village front cover screamed Leo, Law Breaker. A headline that would generate public uproar in any country but our own. The article could also have created an opportunity for an aspiring party member with their eyes on leadership to call on Leo to step down. However Fine Gael remained tightly knit and neither a past nor present TD spoke out against what had been painted as an old boys club tethering on corruption.
 
The article itself warned of a potential quid pro quo for Varadkar, a breach of the ethics act, a potential breach of the Official Secrets Act and a Crime under the Corruption Act. The evidence laid out in the magazine prompted TD Paul Murphy to make a complaint to the political standards watchdog; SIPO.

Later in the month FF appointed Geraldine Feeney, a former lobbyist for NAGP, to sit on SIPO. The president of NAGP was at the centre of the controversy having received the leaked document from Leo, from an outsider’s perspective it seemed like poor timing to make this appointment and hard to swallow that it wasn’t intended to influence the outcome of an investigation into misbehaviour by the former Taoiseach.

Back to the vote on the 10th of November, in what was most likely a matter that should have been dealt with internally, the political parties ended up trading blows over Fine Gaels dirty laundry. Of course it was full of bluster, with more mentions of Sinn Fein than Leo Varadkar and the Labour Party seemed unclear about which side of the house they were sitting on. The following is a summary of the debate without the mudslinging and bluster:

Micheal Martin:
No one has demonstrated any personal gain from how the document was distributed and public policy was not adversely impacted. The Tánaiste has acknowledged his error and all details have been published. Lessons have been learned all round and Ministers realise such situations should not occur during this Government.

Simon Coveney:
Leo Varadkar has been a colleague of mine for many years and he is a person I have grown to know well and trust. Leo's motivation in bringing the National Association of General Practitioners, NAGP, into the fold on a new GP contract was well-meaning but it did take a shortcut. He should not have mailed the document to the NAGP president. He should instead have had the association briefed officially. The Tánaiste has apologised for this and said that it was wrong and not best practice. The Tánaiste has already been before this House to explain himself thoroughly and to take questions. It is obvious now that for some what is ongoing is not about establishing facts or truth but about sustaining a political smear campaign masquerading as whistle-blowing to inflict maximum political damage.

Heather Humphreys:
There is one politician who knows the meaning of the national interest and that is Leo Varadkar. When our country faced some of its darkest hours this year, Leo Varadkar was there. He led from the start and he led from the front. 

Mary Lou McDonald:
When he was Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar leaked a confidential draft contract to a third party, to his friend. The refusal of the current Taoiseach to hold the Tánaiste and leader of Fine Gael to account left a no confidence motion as the only sanction available to us as an Opposition.

The truth is that if a junior civil servant or any departmental official leaked a confidential document they would be sacked, end of story. When Leo Varadkar leaked this document he was the Taoiseach. He was the head of government and that position comes with the highest level of responsibility, with the greatest need for ethical and honest conduct and, therefore, it comes with a greater demand for accountability.

Aodhan O’Riordain:
The Labour Party told the Tánaiste to come clean, to tell the truth, to dispense with the incredible yarn he had been peddling and to apologise, and perhaps there may have been a way out for him. However, the Tánaiste chose not to do that. He persisted with the line that he was leaking the document for the good of the document, a statement that takes the entire country for fools.

The question is not only should the Dáil have confidence in him, but should any trade union have confidence that they can negotiate with this Government in good faith, or should any Minister have confidence that they can share a confidential document with the Tánaiste in good faith. The fact is, in all honesty, they cannot.

Eamon Ryan:
Having listened to the Tánaiste set out his version of events, his admission that what had happened was not right and his apology for such an error of judgment. We accepted that apology.

Paschal Donohoe: 
I express my full confidence in the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar. I have served in government with the Tánaiste since 2014 and knew him for many years before that. The personal and political qualities I have known in him in that time have been apparent again in recent weeks - his openness, honesty and accountability; his genuine commitment to advancing the public interest; and his willingness to acknowledge a mistake. Leo Varadkar's politics are those of decency, progress and doing the right thing by our country. His track record is clear in the leadership he demonstrated in delivering the best outcomes for our country in the many challenges of Brexit; his empathy and decisiveness in leading our country through a demanding and dark phase of Covid-19; and his unstinting support for the management of the economy, public pay and public finances, which has enabled us to meet this moment of challenge from a position of strength

Eoin O’Broin:
The simple fact is that the leader of Fine Gael broke the rules. He breached the confidentiality of Cabinet and sensitive Government contract negotiations, all to give a dig out to a friend. If anyone did this in any other job, they would be sacked. Just because he was the head of Government does not mean that lower standards should be applied

It seems that Fine Gael is fertile recruiting ground for lobbyists who trade in access and influence. All of this has a price. Ordinary people pay the consequence for such insider trading.

It is time to end low standards in high places, time to end insider dealing and time for a Government that looks out for everyone and not just its friends.

Roisin Shortall:
The Tánaiste first tried to make out that the confidential document which he leaked was somehow not confidential, despite it being clearly marked "Confidential, not for circulation". This was a negotiation document that was still in process with the IMO.
The Tánaiste tried to make out that what he did was some kind of noble action, that he had a legitimate objective and that he was honouring the Government commitment. There was no basis whatsoever for this claim. Anyone who knew anything about medical politics at the time knew that the row between the NAGP and the IMO was vicious. The Tánaiste had been a member of the IMO and, anyway, he had lots of friends who were GPs from both organisations, as he has told us. We know the intention of the NAGP's inner sanctum was to scupper the IMO's win on the contract negotiations and to upstage the IMO on the eve of its annual general meeting by releasing details of the arrangement.

Not only was the Tánaiste aware that he should not have interfered with the work of the Minister for Health but he also knew that, according to the Cabinet handbook, he was bound by the officeholders' code of conduct which states that officeholders should respect confidences entrusted to them in the course of their official duties. The Tánaiste clearly breached this requirement. His Trumpian defence that he, as Taoiseach at the time, was the arbiter of what he was allowed to do is laughable.

Simon Harris:
Leo Varadkar is a committed, energetic, smart and sincere leader. I have seen his judgment at first hand during the Covid-19 pandemic and his leadership in trying to keep us all safe as we grappled with a deadly virus. We would not have a new general practice agreement were it not for his leadership. He set it is an absolute priority on becoming Taoiseach. He brought Departments together around the table, banged heads, set objectives, timelines and funding streams and he got it done. 

When the Tánaiste made a mistake, he apologised. Everybody makes mistakes and I am sure none of us wishes to be defined by them.

Paul Murphy:
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are uniting to defend corrupt behaviour while the Green Party is asleep at the wheel. Tonight, Leo Varadkar will get away with it as a result. He will face no consequence as a result of breaking the code of conduct for Deputies, breaking the code of conduct for officeholders, and committing a crime under the Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Act. *(Ceann Comhairle noted the commission of crimes is something that is adjudicated on by a court of law, not by any of us sitting here in Dáil Éireann. Paul Murphy rephrases his statement to accommodate)

Hildegarde Naughton:
The Tánaiste made himself available and accountable last week for detailed questioning by Deputies. He answered completely and honestly. He has admitted he should have done things differently and he apologised for it. Everyone in politics makes mistakes. It is human nature. Some mistakes are more serious than others. The Tánaiste's error is certainly not one that warrants resignation. It was a mistake of process rather than substance.

Joe McHugh:
The Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, is a politician who gets things done. As Taoiseach he worked hard to get so many things done. As Taoiseach, he worked very closely with his Cabinet colleagues and he was always informed. He was solution focused and was always determined to find a solution, even in the most difficult of circumstances. He took his mandate as Taoiseach very seriously and at all times was conscious of the enormous responsibility placed on his very young shoulders.

The Tánaiste does not wear his heart on his sleeve but that does not diminish his passion to serve all the people or his ambition to get things done.

Pearse Doherty:
The issues at stake are very clear. Deputy Varadkar, as Taoiseach in 2019, gave a confidential draft document, a contract worth €210 million that was still under discussion with the IMO, to his friend, the president of a rival organisation, on his request. It was done not through official channels but through private text messages before deleting all traces of the correspondence. A friend of the Taoiseach requested a confidential Government document by text message and Leo delivered. End of. If a civil servant did the same, it would constitute gross misconduct, trigger disciplinary action and be grounds for dismissal

The Tánaiste's excuse for leaking the confidential documents simply does not hold up. He claims it was some part of a mastermind strategy to get the contract over the line, but strategy requires initiative. This was at his initiative. It was his friend who requested the document from the Minister for Health. That Minister refused to give it to him because it was confidential but Leo delivered for his friend. When he was asked to get it, he obliged. He did so in secret and without telling anyone, covering his tracks and deleting the correspondence. He claims leaking the document was part of a strategy to engage with the NAGP but we know there was no engagement with the NAGP on the part of the Government or the Department of Health. Indeed, the only engagement was when Deputy Varadkar stuck a confidential document in the post to give to his friend, the head of the organisation that was rival to the IMO. The Tánaiste says the agreement was in the public domain but it was not. Every single one of the 130 pages had stamped across it, “Confidential. Not for circulation.” We are aware there were at least 35 further changes.

The Tánaiste has been caught red-handed. He leaked confidential, commercially sensitive Government information to a friend. He and his Government colleagues believe he is above accountability but he is not, nor should he be.

Peter Fitzpatrick:
What the Tánaiste did in handing over confidential documents to a GP friend was wrong. That the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, was not aware of that sharing of information was also wrong. It displayed a lack of trust in the then Minister. The bottom line is that the then Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, displayed a complete lack of judgment and undermined his colleagues in government and in his party. If such a situation involving one of his colleagues in government were to arise, I doubt that the Tánaiste would take the same approach. The record speaks for itself in this regard, with the Tánaiste having thrown colleagues under the bus in the past in similar situations.

I reiterate that Leo Varadkar has done wrong. He needs to face the consequences of his actions. In my opinion, his party needs to reprimand him. It is Fine Gael's responsibility to deal with this matter

I will support the motion of confidence in the Tánaiste. This is not because I believe that he did nothing wrong. In fact, what he did was wrong and he should face the consequences for doing it, but action should be taken by his party, Fine Gael. The Government has far more important issues to deal with than this.

Richard Bruton:
We are sent here to try to resolve differences and conflicts, not to create division.
Leo Varadkar is a politician who has done that throughout his career. He sought to progress change in a community where he understood that change is disruptive and can hurt people. He has sought to bring people with us.

People are looking to politics now for competence and compassion. That is what Leo Varadkar has shown, especially during this difficult Covid-19 crisis, but his political opponents want to drag him down.

Carol Nolan:
I am concerned about the lack of consistency with regard to sanctions. We have seen several Oireachtas Members already sanctioned this year and the year has not yet ended. The general public are asking politicians like me why there is no consistency in sanctions and a lack of consistency in this case. The lack of sanction in this case forced the hand of the Opposition. In that respect, the fault lies with the Tánaiste and the Government alone. On account of this fact and this stark reality, I will be voting no confidence in the Tánaiste.

Marian Harkin:
The document should at the very least have been passed on through formal channels. The Tánaiste came before the Dáil last week, accepted his errors of judgment and apologised. He made a serious mistake but has apologised publicly more than once. In my opinion, intent matters as much as, if not more than, process. While the process was wrong, I accept the Tánaiste's explanation that his intent was good in that it was to secure universal acceptance of a GP contract across the GP community.

Yesterday, an article was published purporting to show that the Tánaiste had deliberately attempted to mislead the Dáil as to the extent of his friendship with Maitiú Ó Tuathail. I have looked at that evidence, which consists largely of WhatsApp messages from Maitiú Ó Tuathail. Running through the messages is a pervasive sense of entitlement: "We are the boys who run the show, or who should run the show." Underpinning these flights of fancy was the claim of easy access to the Tánaiste and senior Ministers. However, Dr. Ó Tuathail has in media reports accepted the Tánaiste's version of events, namely, that they had three meetings, so I see no evidence of a smoking gun.

I have not deviated from the subject in hand to make political points. There are many to make, but I have not done so. For me, this is not about political point-scoring; it is about the matter in hand. As already stated, intent matters as much as, if not more than, process. In these circumstances, I believe that the former outweighs the latter and I will vote confidence in the Tánaiste.

Thomas Pringle:
The Tánaiste could simply apologise and step down, as a previous Tánaiste, Frances Fitzgerald, did. There is no excuse for Fianna Fáil and Green Party Deputies to say they have confidence in the Tánaiste. He undermined best practice in the context of standards in public office - this much he has admitted - and should now face the consequences of his actions. If the Tánaiste thinks that "Welfare cheats cheat us all", what does he think about politicians who behave as if they are above the standards set for us and for those in the Civil Service? Who is cheated then? The electorate is definitely cheated, as are those of us elected representatives who try to earn the public's trust in politics.

Helen McEntee:
I have worked with the Tánaiste for eight years. I have seen how he works with other people and with organisations, political parties and colleagues. I have seen how he has worked in difficult situations with challenging problems as he tries to ensure that he listens to every single position put forward and that the best outcome is reached for everybody concerned. One does not have to work with him closely to see this; one need only look at the work he has done on Brexit. He is an honourable person. He cares about his work. People say he is ambitious. To be an ambitious public representative is to ensure the best possible outcome in everything one does for the people whom one represents.

As Taoiseach, one of Deputy Varadkar's priorities - and he made no secret of this - was to ensure that a deal was reached for a new GP contract. He is a former Minister for Health and someone who has trained as a GP and who saw the benefits of the contract, not just for patients but also for GPs and the wider public. This was his sole motive in sharing this document with the NAGP. He has apologised for how this was done but has also answered every question put to him in the House.

Leo Varadkar:
​I wish to restate my apology to the House. I am sorry for my actions that gave rise to tonight's motion and I accept sole responsibility for them. While my motivations were sound, the manner in which I conducted myself was not. I do regret this and I have learned from it. This is the first time I have faced a motion of no confidence or a motion of confidence in my career. It forces me to reflect on the decisions I have made and the things I could have done differently and would do differently in future.

Patricia Piccinini was inspired to create this exquisite representation of a genetically engineered primate feeding a human baby after reading a story about a female baboon whose baby died while still nursing. The primate mother overwhelmed by grief abducted a human child as a substitute (the child was later recovered unharmed).

The biological imperative to hold your child close is not something 'learned' from a guru, a lecture, or any number of parenting manuals; it's pure instinct, so overwhelmingly powerful it transcends everything. The desire to touch their skin, stroke their hair, breathe them in, and hold them safe just beneath your heart is born of a rapture that defies rhyme, reason, and logic.  

The human urge to connect, to care, to nurture is what makes mankind unique, that is to say this urge has the power to unite us when so much threatens to divide us.

To all the Mums, the Dads, the carers, the nurturers out there; you are the custodians of our future leaders, and with every act of love you demonstrate what it means to be a hero.  

Instagram post from @madmadswest inspired by artist @patricia.piccinini

The following post is an extract from Exhibit Alexandra written by Natasha Bell, it features in the book as a thesis written by the main character called “Are Aesthetic Emotions More or Less ‘Real’ Than Those Experienced in Life? Or, I Miss Tony Soprano??”

Over a period of months last year, my husband and I watched the box set, series 1 to 6, of The Sopranos. Like other across the globe, the characters infiltrated our lives like friends and enemies. We spoke about their motivations and predicaments, debated their options and futures. Then they were gone.

With an unsettlingly abrupt final episode and the last depression of our player’s eject button, they were out of our lives. We discussed the ending for a few days, then moved on to American Horror Story. Now, twelve months later, I still miss the character of Tony Soprano. I miss he presence in my conscious psyche; I miss knowing I can return to his world at the end of a long day.

I also miss my father, who gave up after a long fight with cancer a decade ago. I miss those sweets that tasted like soap, which I was only allowed on holiday when I was a child. I miss my daughters when they’re at school and I miss my student days, when I felt I could achieve anything. I miss being able to read Jane Austen for the first time and fall in love with the characters afresh. I miss Father Christmas and vampires, unicorns and digital watches.

I miss dozens of things, real and imagined, to varying degrees and with no or a full desire to have them returned to me. But are some of these emotions of a different class? Of differing importance?

Ed S. Tan distinguishes between A- and R- emotions. Aesthetic and Real Emotions. In other word, Art-world and Life-world emotions. He goes on to discuss the difference between emotions related to actual artworks and those related to the things represented within the artworks. I’ll call these A- and A2- emotions. Missing Tony Soprano, who is not a real person an whom I have never met, is an A2 emotion, while mourning the end of the HBO series, which was a feature in my real life, is an A-emotion.

All very amusing, but why are both sets of A-emotions considered less worthy than their R- counterparts? Sure, it doesn’t have a truly physical impact on my life if the final blackout ending of The Sopranos means Tony Soprano was shot, whereas my world would spin into turmoil if one of my close friends was hit by a bullet while eating dinner in a restaurant with his family. But is crying during your favourite soap opera really any more ridiculous than shedding tears while reading a tragic story in the newspaper?

‘Real’ is a judgement label, which I blame for some of the value imbalance between R- and A- emotions, but I think it goes deeper. It’s ingrained in our social constructs that, whatever job we choose, religion we sign up to or life philosophy we decide to pursue, we should expect to live essentially like our neighbours: in cookie-cutter moulds of birth-to-death cycles. Perhaps, it’s a product of capitalism or something more innate. Either way, I’d argue that there’s something quite absurd about holding R- emotions so high above A-s when the R-s are only those that everyone else experiences. On the whole, you and I and the kids down the road will all fall in love, be let down, feel rejected by someone we care about, achieve something we wanted, bury our parents, hold our children, question our god .... and so on.

There is a finite number of R- emotions – a very large finite number, but a finite number nonetheless – from which each of us will lucky-dip only a tiny percentage. But the A-s are different. Artists have been working for millennia to manipulate our emotional responses to their work: to create a whole new pool of emotions and feelings, and to seek original thought and unique experiences. Surely, for that reason alone, the A-s should have a higher place on the shelf of worth. I’m not saying that R-s do not hurt and sting and make your flesh ache with longing, but why must we cling to them when they have been felt over and over for centuries with no evolution?

Would it not be more sensible to pursue the unknown? To seek the edge of human experience, experiment with manipulating and controlling emotions rather than sitting back and waiting for the world to tell us what too feel? The artist who makes me cry shows far more talent, far more skill, than the boyfriend who dumps me. One has thought, with precision about her product, considered its impact on me, the viewer, rehearsing and tweaking her performance, while the other has simply followed some gut instinct. Some evolutionary impulse to cut his losses and flee.
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And while the inadvertently Darwinian of the two might crush my heart and seem like the most tragic thing in the world for some miniscule moment in my trivial existence, the artist and her art, should it be of suitable worth, will live on beyond my heartbreak and beyond her own lifetime, framed in galleries, reperformed for decades, ore merely played on the screens across the globe. Sad as the implications about individual human worth might be, I’d hazard a guess that more people miss Tony Soprano than my dad. 

Ever wonder how you can change the world without changing the way you live?

Well some very bright young Trinity graduates might have just come up with the solution by creating a loyalty card for charity.

“While studying at Trinity Conor Leen became more aware of the issue of inequality and how as a society, not enough is being done to tackle issues like food poverty. To address the problem of world hunger and to make a positive impact on society Connor and 5 of his fellow Trinity classmates set up the social enterprise Stampify.” @collegetimesct

“Stampify is a social initiative that allows users to donate meals to help fight world hunger by completing a Stampify loyalty card with loyalty stamps from partner businesses,” CEO and founder @ConorLeen

These “partner businesses” are basically coffee shops and they’re everywhere. This is a social movement that can make a difference and any barista can sign up. Basically if you fancy feeling like Bob Geldof and George Clooney at the same time make sure your coffee comes with a Stampify card.  

To use Stampify, you simply pick up a Stampify loyalty card next time you get a coffee and start collecting stamps on it. It’s better than putting a stamp on those regular selfish “freebie for me” cards that you eventually end up using as a filter for your rollies anyway.  

“Chances are that if many of us emptied out our wallets, out will fall three or four half-filled loyalty cards.” @JOEdotie

The main benefit is that you can then mix-and-match loyalty stamps from different cafes to complete the card, before returning it to any of them, feed a child for a week, and feel like Bob Clooney for the rest of the day.

“To provide meals to fight world hunger, we have partnered with international aid charity Mary’s Meals. For every completed card, partners make a donation to Mary’s Meals which is used to feed a child for a week.” @stampifyireland

“For every completed card, a child will be fed for a week in their place of education in some of the world's most deprived countries .... For now the initiative is aiding children in countries such as Zambia, India and Malawi.” @Independent_ie

This all began because one third of our bee species are now threatened with extinction. This is because we have drastically reduced the amount of food (flowers) and safe nesting sites in our landscapes. The All-Ireland Pollinator Plan is about all of us, from farmers to local authorities, to schools, gardeners and businesses, coming together to try to create an Ireland where pollinators can survive and thrive.

Without the pollination service freely provided by our bees and hoverflies, it would be increasingly difficult and expensive for farmers to produce some crops at current scales, and could result in a loss of consumer choice for Irish grown products. The beauty of the Irish landscape would also be affected without pollinators to maintain the diversity of our wild plants and support healthy ecosystems.

To give this some context, the annual value of pollinators for human food crops has been estimated at €153 billion world-wide and at least €53 million in the Republic of Ireland.

The real economic value of pollinators to the Irish economy is likely to be greater than currently estimated. Current evaluations don’t take into account the value of pollinators to forage crops (clovers), in pest control (e.g.,the role of hoverflies in protecting winter wheat crops), or their value to private gardeners and communities who grow a wide range of pollinator-dependent fruits and vegetables.

Maintaining biodiversity in the farm system future-proofs how the land can be used for generations to come. It is important to accept that if wild pollinator species were to be lost from the Irish landscape, they could not be replaced, regardless of monetary input.

So unless you want to live in a Blackmirror episode go out there and make your garden grow, and write to your recently elected local councilor to tell them you love the bees and want to see a pollinator patch in your park.
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This Plan was initiated by Úna FitzPatrick (National Biodiversity Data Centre) and Jane Stout (Trinity College Dublin), and then developed by a fifteen member All-Ireland steering group. For more info check out their website pollinators.ie