Personal Explanation by Minister Dail Éireann — 2022-01-27 ============================================================ Simon Coveney (FG), Cork South-Central Before I respond to questions on defence, with the understanding of colleagues, I would like to make a brief comment to address media reports about my comments in response to a question last night at the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party meeting on defence matters and on the situation in Ukraine. I mentioned this earlier to some Deputies. Brendan Howlin (LAB), Wexford We are happy to allow the Minister an opportunity to make his statement. Simon Coveney (FG), Cork South-Central It is not a statement per se . It is something I would like to raise with the Deputies' accommodation. I have absolutely no hesitation in expressing my full support and confidence in the Chief of Staff and in his judgment. The Chief of Staff is holding a number of pro forma meetings at the moment with members of the diplomatic corps, as a new Chief of Staff would be expected to do. Those meetings have been set up over many weeks. What I commented on last night in response to a question related to the timing of the meeting with the Russian ambassador and the subsequent tweet drawing attention to it. I have, as Deputies would expect, been fully briefed by the Chief of Staff. I spoke to him again last night. I have absolutely no reservations or questions about his actions. I want to put that on the record. It is not welcome that the Chief of Staff has been brought into public commentary and political debate. I recognise that I made a contribution to allowing that to happen. I would like to correct that this morning, if the House would accept that. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2022-01-27/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:02+00:00 Sitting date: 2022-01-27