No recruitment under way for UN envoy job

No process in place to fill the role after controversial appointment of former children's minister Katherine Zappone last year, Dáil committee told

Former children's minister Katherine Zappone turned down the UN special envoy position amid public backlash. File picture

No recruitment is under way for the role of UN Special Envoy on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, an Oireachtas committee has been told.

The appointment of former children's minister Katherine Zappone as a UN special envoy — a position that was never publicly advertised — dogged the Government for weeks last summer before Ms Zappone ultimately turned down the position amid public backlash.

Documents released by the Department of Foreign Affairs last year showed the role had been considered to be "extremely timely in terms of the growing prominence and import of the issues involved".

However, senior management of the department on Thursday appeared before the Public Accounts Committee and chief operating officer John Conlan told Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy he was not aware of any process to fill the role.

"I don't think there's any process in place for that at present. But if we do go for a new special envoy, we will follow the process where we will apply to the Government for a decision to set up the role, undertake a process to select someone and then go back to Government."

Mr Carthy said the department had last year "told us that this was an incredibly important position for Ireland, for our international reputation".

Fianna Fáil's James O'Connor earlier challenged Mr Conlan on the process for appointing envoys and ambassadors. Mr Conlan said the procedure had been updated since last year, requiring the roles to be advertised and an open competition held. 

Mr O'Connor asked if, in past, it would be the minister's responsibility to draw up a list of candidates for an envoy role. Mr Conlan said there had only been "three or four" special envoys in the past and this was generally done based on competencies. 

Mr O'Connor said Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney's attempts to "create a role" last summer had "muddied the waters".

Passports

On passports, nearly 40% of all applications are on hold due to more information being needed, the committee was told. 

Mr Conlan said 167,000 applications are currently in the system. While 104,000 of these are being processed, 63,000 are in the system awaiting additional information.

TDs from across the committee said they had been inundated with contacts about passports, with Sinn Féin's Imelda Munster saying that people had called "hundreds of times, over and over" and had "not heard a peep" in return. 

Mr Conlan said there were 846 staff in the office, about 70 below what has been targeted. He said 30% of people offered jobs had declined due to the "current labour market".

Mr Conlan said in his opening statement that the customer service levels in the passport office had not been good enough and apologised.

“I can assure this committee that we are focusing on addressing this challenge as a matter of priority, including through the temporary recruitment of call-centre staff previously engaged by the HSE,” he said.

Mr Conlan said investment in the technology of the passport service has been "transformative".