Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 7 September 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence

Appointment of Special Envoys: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That was the idea of my Department. We had 12 envoys at that time. We were campaigning to be on the UN Security Council. The Deputy might remember it was a very competitive campaign, with Norway, Ireland and Canada, three very prominent countries, in the UN system. We were competing against each other for two places. Many people were surprised that Ireland got more votes than Canada, but part of the reason for that is that we had a dozen special envoys, most of them diplomats, travelling to different parts of the world.

We decided we would ask Katherine Zappone because she had been quite involved in that lobbying with our Department in terms of some of the human rights work she was interested in and some of the travel she has done. That was the position. She was asked to be a special envoy for the nine months.

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