Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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407. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of full-time equivalent and part-time equivalent posts filled by his Department at principal officer, assistant principal officer, higher executive officer, executive officer and clerical officer grades for the past five years; the cost to the Exchequer; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35485/20]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department has filled staff posts through open competitions, inter-departmental competitions and internal competitions. This was targeted at filling vacancies; supporting Brexit-related negotiations and preparations; modernising the passport service through the move to online applications and fraud prevention; the expansion of Ireland’s diplomatic and consular mission network as part of the Global Ireland 2025 strategy, and providing additional operational and policy reinforcement in headquarters.

Since the launch of Global Ireland in June 2018, new Embassies have opened in New Zealand, Colombia, Jordan, Liberia and Chile, and new Consulates General in Vancouver, Mumbai, Cardiff, Frankfurt and Los Angeles. This brings to ninety the number of diplomatic Missions in Ireland’s global network. Next year new Embassy openings are planned for Kyiv in Ukraine, Manila in the Philippines and Rabat in Morocco.

My Department has strengthened capacity in the passport service by recruiting additional permanent and temporary staff to respond to a significant increase in the number of applications from Great Britain and Northern Ireland arising out of Brexit and the provision of enhanced customer service/call answering facilities.

The number of full-time equivalent and part-time equivalent roles filled by the Department of posts at principal officer, assistant principal officer, higher executive officer, executive officer and clerical officer grades for the past five years in my Department is set out in tabular form in Table 1 at the link, as is the total cost to the Exchequer of those posts. It is important to note that new staff filling vacancies represent no additional cost.

A breakdown of the total staff numbers by means of joining is set out in tabular form in Table 2.

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