Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests.

Why did the work event take place in an open-plan area? I presume there was a significance to that. The question has been asked, but will the Secretary General restate that all the social distancing issues arose during a few minutes surrounding the taking of a photograph? Is that what he is suggesting?

Because the Minister is sometimes wrongly implicated in this case, will Mr. Hackett or the Minister explain to the committee the control structures in the Department, that is, the HR and supervision structures? Where does the Minister's responsibility for internal staffing matters begin and end? As for the contribution and the mistake, are there any further steps? There is reasonable public anger about this. There has been admission of an error. Is there anything further the Secretary General or the Minister thinks could be done to give people confidence that this is being taken seriously?

I have one final question. Beyond this mistake, I ask the Secretary General for an update on the major areas Ireland has been focusing on during our term on the Security Council. There is less than a year left in our term. The question of what we have been doing since is relevant in the context of a celebration.