Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of additional staff hired by his Department for the duration of the Irish Presidency of the EU Council; the total anticipated costs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1566/13]

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade received a temporary reprieve from the impact of the Government’s Employment Control Framework and was also allocated 50 temporary extra posts for 2012 and 2013 in order to enable it to plan and fulfil its EU Presidency responsibilities and activities in the first half of this year. The sanctioned additional staff are now in situ and have been assigned as appropriate, either to front line Presidency-related activities or to back-fill positions vacated by experienced officers redeployed to Presidency roles.

At headquarters, nine staff have been redeployed to my Department from other Government Departments and Offices, to which they are scheduled to return in summer 2013. Ten administrative and 11 clerical staff have also been engaged on fixed-term contracts through the Public Appointments Service and 9 Interns have been recruited on the same basis directly by the Department. Furthermore, a small number of staff have been temporarily seconded to the Department from other EU Member States and from the EU’s External Action Service, at no cost to the Exchequer, and one retired officer has been temporarily re-engaged until July 2013.

As regards Missions abroad, the majority of Presidency-related posts have been assigned to the Permanent Representation of Ireland to the European Union in Brussels, with smaller numbers allocated to other Missions including the Permanent Missions to the UN in New York and Geneva and that to the OSCE in Vienna. The Presidency staffing plan for the Permanent Representation in Brussels was prepared following a carefully coordinated inter-departmental needs evaluation. Overall, the staffing of the Permanent Representation has been temporarily increased by 80 officers in various grades, with the majority of staff assigned by other Departments and Offices at their own expense and from within their own staffing resources and some 30 administrative and clerical staff temporarily locally recruited.

Expenditure on salaries and related costs for these additional Presidency staff amounted to €1.169m in 2012. A budget of €2m has been allocated for the same salary costs for 2013. This allocation will also be used to meet overtime costs occurring in relation to Presidency events, including those taking place in Ireland.