A gray afternoon in Dublin may have marked the point where Ireland and Apple truly started to fall out of love, at least publicly.

Up until about 4.15 p.m. Tuesday, it was impossible to place a cigarette paper between Ireland's hip young prime minister Leo Varadkar and Apple's Tim Cook, as they united to fight Europe's contention that the government had granted the iPhone maker a sweetheart tax deal.

That alliance began to fray this week, as Varadkar appeared to blame Apple for delays in the collection of about 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) in back taxes Ireland has been ordered to gather from the company. The European Commission sued Ireland in October for failing to collect the money quickly enough.

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