The war of words over the Web Summit’s decision to move from Dublin has escalated, with the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny joining the fray.

The Taoiseach’s department was the target of accusations levelled earlier in the day by the founder of the Web Summit, Paddy Cosgrave, that there had been a complete failure to engage on the part of the Government. To support these assertions, Cosgrave published a series of letters and emails between him and the Taoiseach’s private secretary, Nick Reddy.

However, that narrative was roundly rejected today by the Taoiseach, who insisted that the organisers of the Web Summit had made their decision for “commercial reasons.”

Speaking to RTÉ, Enda Kenny gave his version of events, on his way in, to a summit meeting of Prime Ministers, in Brussels.

"I spoke to Paddy [Cosgrave] myself when he was in Portugal,” the Taoiseach explained, "saying we would offer whatever assistance we can, in terms of what the Government could do. It wasn't the Government writing a cheque here, but being very supportive along the line.”

He contrasted the decision of the Web Summit with that of the IT outfit Sage, which announced 300 new jobs in Ireland yesterday. Enda Kenny said that Dublin had been in competition with ten other cities for those jobs – and had won.

"The Web Summit are fully entitled to make their decision,” he stated – but he also suggested that neither the Government nor its agencies would be taking the decision lying down. "I expect that vacuum will be filled by others in a relatively short time,” the Taoiseach added.

Meanwhile, back in Dublin, the spinning of the story began to take a more solid shape as the afternoon progressed. Government sources were adamant that they had supported the Web Summit above and beyond the norm. The point was made in briefings that it was disingenuous for anyone to suggest that the Web Summit was not looking for “a penny”, when much of what it was seeking in terms of support came at a cost to the State.

While the correspondence will surely be read and interpreted differently by the warring sides, there is no doubt that it highlights many of the flaws in Ireland’s approach to supporting major public events. On the one hand, there is no one authority to which event organisers can turn for either support or clarity, with any of a number of different interests having a potential input into any decisions that have to be made. And on the other, the reality is that those who are organising events are likely to be faced with huge bills for services which the public may well assume are provided as a matter of course by the State – policing being a prime example.

These costs, often pitched at an apparently arbitrary level, are faced on an ongoing basis by promoters and event management companies here in Ireland – so that the complaints of the Web Summit are far from unique. However, they were in a different position than most Irish events, in that the Web Summit was not intrinsically Irish – and therefore was coveted by other European cities.

Among the claims made by the Web Summit, in the correspondence released today, was that Prince Charles, Number 10 Downing Street and the chairman of the Conservative Party were all interested in the event.

For its part, Dublin City Council – who were criticised by implication in the correspondence released, not least in relation to an alleged absence of a traffic plan for the event – issued a statement this afternoon insisting that it has been very supportive of the Web Summit over the years and that everything possible and within reason was done to facilitate it.

The statement revealed that, in 2015, an unidentified senior official in the City Council took on the specific role of trying to get a more co-ordinated approach to the event, not just from within Dublin City Council but in a way that would include all the other external agencies and Government Departments.

The statement pointed out that the Assistant Chief Executive, Brendan Kenny, had met Paddy Cosgrave last year and stated that Mr.Kenny would have gladly met him again if a request for a meeting had been made. Dublin City Council insisted that they were not aware of any request being made on behalf of the Web Summit or its founder this year.

Dublin Chamber of Commerce also entered the fray this afternoon, warning that Dublin will lose further investment and events like the Web Summit, unless an overall 'single plan' for Dublin is formulated.

The Director of Public Affairs, Aebhric McGibney, described the current approach as "piecemeal”. He said that the correspondence released today highlights the lack of the overall plan for Dublin over the next 30 years.

Echoing the criticisms of many event organisers over the years, McGibney observed that there is no single place where organisers of an event can go to join the dots for an event like the Web Summit.