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

As the former Secretary General said, there was no political input on the work that the Department did on this. This was technical work from experts in different sections of the Department. There was a food-for-thought paper, prepared in the context of Department of Foreign Affairs responsibilities as well as of the implementation of the national LGBTI+ inclusion strategy, which was finalised on 25 March. There was an overview prepared of practice in other EU member states, in the UK, and in the US on the appointments of ambassadors and envoys with human rights responsibilities. The committee will have that detailed paper, which shows that virtually every country in the western world was developing similar kinds of roles.

On 18 April, after exchanges between the political division and the team in Geneva and in Dublin, a concept note was prepared which set out the rationale and scope for the appointment of an envoy in the human rights sphere. In July, a special envoy terms of reference, rationale, tasking, timeframe and support was emailed. There was extensive work in the Department, which I was not involved in but I knew it was going on because the Secretary General had told me so. That is the position.

On the final question from Senator O'Reilly around the future involvement of the committee, I said this last week and I say it again today: mistakes have been made by me, here, that have undermined the credibility of appointing special envoys in the future. I would like to depoliticise that process in the future and try to get all-party agreement on how, or if, special envoys should be appointed in the future. Certainly, I am happy to work with the committee on that.