An Irish Times journalist, Ms Renagh Holohan, confirmed last night she had organised the holiday in which the Tanaiste and the Minister for Finance stayed in a villa in the south of France owned by one of Mr Ulick McEvaddy's companies. Ms Harney had said on radio yesterday the trip was arranged by a friend.
Ms Holohan explained that she has organised holidays for many years for a group of friends which includes Ms Harney and others. "I usually organise them because Mary is too busy," she said.
Ms Holohan said that earlier this year she met Ms Mary Mc Evaddy, the wife of Mr Ulick Mc Evaddy, at a function. Ms Holo han said she and Ms McEvaddy were friends and she was aware the McEvaddys had a villa in France. They began discussing holidays and Ms Holohan said she was organising holidays for her group of friends as usual and they were considering going to France in August. They had been to the Bordeaux area before and were considering a different region this time.
Ms McEvaddy mentioned that her villa was in the Nice area and that she and her husband would be there at some stage in August. If their holidays coincided, they might meet up at some stage there.
"We met again at some other function and Mary McEvaddy asked me whether we had found somewhere to go. I said `no' and she said that her villa might be available. She came back on another occasion and said it would be available for a period in August, and asked would we like to stay there for a while. I said that would be nice and agreed we would go."
She put the plan to the others including Ms Harney and they agreed it was a good idea. She told them at the time it was the McEvaddys' villa. Ms Harney and Mr McCreevy were friendly with the McEvaddys, she said.
Ms McEvaddy gave Ms Holohan various suggestions as to which scheduled flights to use to get to Nice. Ms Holohan said she got dates and times for flights, checked the villa was empty at that time and booked the flights for herself, Ms Harney and another friend who usually travels with them on holiday.
She said she told former Labour MEP, Ms Bernie Malone - who is also a friend of Ms Holohan - they had booked flights and made this arrangement and suggested she and her husband might want to join them. Ms Holohan said she rang Mr McCreevy's wife, Noeleen, and made the same suggestion to her. The Malones and the McCreevys agreed to go as well and made their own arrangements.
While everybody knew whose villa it was, the issue of whether there was any conflict involved never arose in conversation, said Ms Holohan. "The villa was empty, the McEvaddys were not going to be there."
Ms Holohan, Ms Harney and their party moved out of the villa after about a week and stayed at a hotel, as the McEvaddys were coming to stay in the villa. They met Mr and Ms McEvaddy when they arrived last week and brought them out to dinner twice. "We paid as a token appreciation of their hospitality," said Ms Holohan. She said that no issue relating to airport or aviation policy was raised during either dinner.
Ms Holohan said she is more friendly with the McEvaddys, in particular Ms Mary McEvaddy, than the others are. "They have been in my house and I in theirs."
She said she sees no problem with her friendship with them or her holiday in their villa. "I don't write about aviation or business. I wrote about them once in my column in relation to a charity ball they organised that I would have written about it anyway. It was a £100 per ticket affair for which I paid £200 for myself and a partner."