Varadkar as tensions surface
Then Mr Varadkar cancelled the weekly meeting of Fine Gael ministers, which takes place before the Cabinet meeting.
A number of ministers spoke up in defence of Ms Fitzgerald at Cabinet, including Health Minister Simon Harris, who said she should have been afforded due process.
But others were scathing of the ex-tánaiste, with one minister describing her resignation at Cabinet as “cold” and “unapologetic”.
Fine Gael TDs and senators are due to meet today for the first time since Ms Fitzgerald’s resignation.
However, it’s widely accepted that Mr Varadkar’s standing within the party has been damaged.
One minister questioned whether Mr Varadkar had been “naive” not to spot that the second tranche of emails would be fatal for the ex-tánaiste.
“What were they thinking? How did they not know it would end this way once they saw those emails. It’s hard to understand,” said one Cabinet minister.
Sources say Mr Varadkar was “very frustrated and annoyed” by the way the controversy has ended.
He will face TDs and senators at a scheduled private meeting of the party in Leinster House.
In the Dáil, the Taoiseach sought to defend his handling of the crisis, saying: “I certainly am not in any way happy about how the last couple of weeks have played out.
“Notwithstanding the enormous distraction this has been for the Government and for the country, we did not have to end up in the situation we are in today,” the Dublin West TD added.
Mr Varadkar said if questions had been answered “properly and fully”, he would not have come into the House on two occasions to correct previous statements.