• During the first Lisbon referendum campaign, Coughlan twice claimed, mistakenly, that larger EU member states were entitled to two EU commissioners. Given that she had a lot of experience of EU negotiations for farmers when she was agriculture minister, this was an avoidable slip-up. She soon disappeared from the 'Yes' campaign and took a back seat in the second referendum campaign.

• She said, "There will be no supplementary budget", five days before the announcement of the emergency mini-budget last April.

• In an interview with Raidió na Gaeltachta last September she referred to the Green Party as "na glasraí", which is the Irish word for vegetables.

• Speaking at an IDA Innovation Ireland launch last autumn, she credited Albert Einstein with the theory of evolution, instead of Charles Darwin.

• She told the Dáil last September that the cabinet had not met, a day after she had chaired a cabinet meeting in the absence of Taoiseach Brian Cowen, who was at a UN meeting in New York.

• The medical card fiasco was still at boiling point when she told the Dáil: "I ask for the indulgence of the House, given that we need clarity on this issue. Of the savings of €100m, €86m is for GPs and €30m is for pharmacists".

• In late 2008 she claimed that the United States has "strong union representation". The US is one of the world's least unionised countries.

• Coughlan landed herself in controversy last September when she told the Dáil that many aspects of the report of An Bord Snip Nua that did not "make sense".

• Last month she claimed in a BBC interview with Stephen Sackur that some emigration was "not a bad thing" and that some young people were leaving Ireland because "they want to enjoy themselves".