The picture taken of Tánaiste Leo Varadkar at a London festival shows that some people will “celebrate” the violation of another's privacy, according to his partner Matt Barrett.
Mr Varadkar was criticised after a picture of him, taken without his knowledge, at the Mighty Hoopla festival in London was widely circulated on social media last Saturday.
It drew huge criticism, with many in the entertainment industry pointing out that this was the weekend the cancelled Electric Picnic would have taken place.
In a letter published in The Irish Times on Saturday, Mr Barrett said: “The notion that the right to privacy is one which is conditional on the attitudes, sensibilities and prejudices of another” is “both ridiculous and dangerous”.
Mr Barrett wrote: “The individual who photographed the Tánaiste does not have a right to violate this [right to privacy] merely because she believed it was justified and consistent with her own beliefs about what constitutes appropriate behaviour.”
