Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave pulled no punches on the event’s opening night.
Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave highlighted Tánaiste Leo Varadkar’s alleged leaking controversy in front of a worldwide audience in Lisbon on Monday night.
While introducing Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen as the event’s keynote speaker, Cosgrave underlined the value of whistleblowing by pointing to the scandal over the alleged leaking of a confidential document in relation to a contract for general practitioners in Ireland.
An article in Village Magazine alleged that Varadkar passed on a confidential agreement with the Irish Medical Organisation to Maitiú Ó Tuathail, who was the head of the National Association of General Practitioners, in 2019, when Varadkar was Taoiseach.
Varadkar would go on to apologise for “an error of judgement” while refuting suggestions that his engagements on the matter were in any way illegal.
Months later on RTÉ Prime Time, Varadkar would double down on his proclaimed innocence.
Speaking on Monday night (1 November) in Lisbon, Paddy Cosgrave aired the details to his audience, inviting Village Magazine editor Michael Smith and Chay Bowes and John Tighe, who were involved in the publishing the story in question, onstage for a round of applause.
Images of Varadkar and related media were displayed on giant screens during Cosgrave’s speech.
Before introducing Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen as keynote speaker on the opening night of Web Summit… Paddy Cosgrave has told a worldwide audience about the Leo Varadkar NAGP leak story pic.twitter.com/90SDSgeMTX
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) November 1, 2021
“In 2020, Whistleblower Aid created their first outpost in Europe in Ireland,” said Cosgrave.
“The very first Irish whistleblower that John Tighe, the co-founder of Whistleblower Aid, advised was an entrepreneur called Chay Bowes. Chay had evidence of potential corruption by Ireland’s then Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar.
“Chay, together with Ireland’s foremost investigative journalist Michael Smith, editor of Village Magazine, went on to publish exactly one year ago this week; a devastating exposé of Ireland’s then Prime Minister Leo Varadkar,” Cosgrave continued.
“The guidance Whistleblower Aid provided to Chay and the work of Michael Smith have triggered the longest criminal investigation into a senior political figure in decades in Ireland.”
Cosgrave went on to praise Bowes in particular for his “incredible courage” before commanding the audience to give the trio a “huge round of applause for what they’ve achieved”.
Featured Image of Leo Varadkar via Sasko Lazarov / Rollingnews.ie
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
