Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senator for highlighting our home area and the beautiful villages of Ardagh and Colehill. While he may have left those areas, I can report that they are ably represented by Councillor Mick Cahill and Senator Joe Flaherty.

I thank the Senator for raising this important matter. Ireland faces a challenge at present in maintaining its internal influence in the EU. The reasons for this include but are not exclusive to recent and upcoming retirements of Irish officials at the most senior levels within the institutions. While I thank the Senator for raising this issue, I refute the statement that the Government is doing nothing. In fact, the programme for Government commits to deliver on plans to increase the number of Irish people applying for positions in the institutions of the EU, including through a communications campaign targeted at school leavers and graduates highlighting the opportunities available and a partnership with third level providers to do the same.

In recognition of this dual challenge, a strategy to increase Irish representation within the EU institutions and agencies, A Career for EU, was launched in May 2021. Through this strategy, the Government actively promotes EU jobs and aims to increase the number of Irish people employed within EU institutions. The strategy, which is managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, includes a number of elements aimed at encouraging Irish citizens to apply for posts in the EU institutions.It also offers direct assistance for competitions, including dedicated training for assessment centres. The strategy aims to significantly increase the number of Irish officials in both permanent and temporary positions within the EU. This is done through increased promotion and outreach to secondary and third level students to raise awareness of EU career opportunities. A dedicated EU careers portal accessible on ireland.ie/en/eu-jobs provides information on EU jobs and the supports available to all Irish applicants.

The Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, Deputy Thomas Byrne, who leads on the EU jobs strategy working with officials in the Department, has been proactive in driving this agenda forward. The Minister of State raises the issues regularly with senior EU officials to see what more can be done to increase the Irish uptake of positions in the EU institutions. In a recent meeting with the Commissioner with responsibility for these issues, Commissioner Serafin, the Minister of State raised the issue and discussed options for increasing the level of Irish staffing. In recent months, he has met with the director general for human resources of the European Commission and the director of the European Personnel Selection Office, EPSO. He has engaged with Irish staff working across the institutions to update them on the Government strategy and to hear from them on how Ireland can further assist them in their careers. The Minister of State will continue to champion this issue in meetings with EU counterparts.

The Government invests significantly in the support of EU representation through central funding for seconded national experts and the EU jobs campaign. We are backing our ambitions with concrete support. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade offers candidates assistance at all stages of the recruitment process, including assistance with preparing for preliminary tests and the provision of training packs for EPSO competition reasoning tests in partnership with EU training and the Irish language supports. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade also facilitates secondments under the seconded national experts, SNE, programme when vacancies for positions in the European Commission and across the various EU institutions arise. Currently, there are more than 40 officials from almost all Departments as well as a number of agencies whose placements are supported under the SNE programme. We aim to increase this to 50 in the next year or so. The Department also facilitates the annual seconded national experts return conference to discuss the work of Irish SNEs and to support them in engaging with their home Departments and to update them on current Irish Government priorities.

The national experts in professional training, NEPT, programme and the Erasmus for officials programme are short-term training schemes that provide officials with first-hand experience of working in the European Commission and other EU institutions. I will provide the Senator with the remainder of the reply.