{"id":476014,"date":"2026-05-09T07:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T07:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/476014\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T07:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T07:09:10","slug":"officials-questioned-how-nominating-phil-hogan-for-key-un-post-would-benefit-the-state-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/476014\/","title":{"rendered":"Officials questioned how nominating Phil Hogan for key UN post would \u2018benefit\u2019 the State \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government officials questioned how nominating former Fine Gael<\/a> minister Phil Hogan<\/a> to compete for a senior post leading the United Nations<\/a> food security agency would \u201cbenefit\u201d the State, internal emails show. <\/p>\n

Documents reveal a plan to back Hogan, a former EU<\/a> commissioner, in an election to lead the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) stirred tensions between two Government departments. <\/p>\n

Hogan was nominated as the State\u2019s candidate in the race to take over as director general of the UN agency, with the Cabinet signing off on this in early March. <\/p>\n

The election to fill the director general position will take place next summer, with each of the 193 countries that are members of the UN body holding one vote. <\/p>\n

Hogan faces competition as Spain, Italy, Turkey and Angola have each advanced their candidates, with more challengers expected to emerge in the coming months. <\/p>\n

Internal emails, seen by The Irish Times, show the Department of Public Expenditure<\/a> questioned the value of the State nominating someone in the race for the UN role. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are the expected benefits for the State associated with this public expenditure?\u201d one official asked colleagues in the Department of Agriculture<\/a> in an email on February 16th. <\/p>\n

Officials wanted to know if a business case had been drawn up, given that two civil servants would be tasked with providing the Republic\u2019s candidate administrative support. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat will that arrangement involve?\u201d the email stated. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0How Phil Hogan laid the groundwork for a possible comebackOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Department of Agriculture said securing the international job would \u201cstrengthen Ireland\u2019s influence within the United Nations system,\u201d and reinforce the State\u2019s standing as an \u201ceffective multilateral actor\u201d on the world stage. <\/p>\n

The \u201cpractical benefits\u201d of having an Irish person in the role would include \u201cimproved access to strategic intelligence,\u201d the department said in a response on February 17th. <\/p>\n

The Republic would enjoy \u201cgreater input into the development of international standards, and stronger positioning for Irish agri-food interests and expertise\u201d, officials wrote in internal correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n

The Department of Agriculture said a formal business case had not been written for the proposal, but two civil servants assigned to assist Hogan\u2019s campaign will write it and carry out other duties. <\/p>\n

The UN agency is based in Rome and the job running it pays a salary of $265,000 (\u20ac225,000) a year, plus an extra $50,000 \u201crepresentation\u201d allowance. <\/p>\n

It is understood Hogan had been considering a run for the UN role since about last September<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Records show Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon, a Fine Gael Cabinet member, brought a memo to Cabinet in December on the basis that he saw \u201cmerit in considering the possibility of putting forward an Irish candidate\u201d for the UN position. <\/p>\n

The Government was very keen to head off possible political backlash and put out an open call at the start of this year. <\/p>\n

It emerged publicly at the end of January in a report in The Irish Times<\/a> that Hogan was seeking the role.<\/p>\n

Two candidates interviewed by a panel were \u201cdeemed suitable for the Minister\u2019s consideration\u201d, according to internal department notes. Hogan was recommended as the first choice. <\/p>\n

Hogan secured the Government\u2019s nomination<\/a> for the role in early March. <\/p>\n

Hogan left politics following the Golfgate controversy of 2020 during the Covid pandemic. His departure followed a backlash for attending a dinner organised by the Oireachtas golf society at a time when pandemic restrictions on large gatherings were in place.<\/p>\n

He set up a lucrative political consultancy business<\/a>, advising JP Morgan, Visa and other clients. <\/p>\n

A European has not held the UN position in more than 50 years. And there is a push in Brussels to coalesce behind a single EU candidate rather than split the vote.<\/p>\n

Hogan has been visiting EU capitals to lobby other governments for support, as well as travelling to meet delegates at regional FAO conferences, including one in Tajikistan next week. <\/p>\n

An earlier timeline had envisaged EU agriculture ministers settling on one candidate by late June, but it is unclear whether the 27 ministers will be pressed into a vote to decide the matter, said two sources. <\/p>\n

Spain has nominated its minister for agriculture, Luis Planas, for the role, while Italy has advanced Maurizio Martina, deputy to the current FAO director. <\/p>\n

The Hogan camp is said to be confident of support from the 14 governments led by politicians from the European People\u2019s Party, the centre-right grouping that includes Fine Gael. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Government officials questioned how nominating former Fine Gael minister Phil Hogan to compete for a senior post leading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,15778,42426,2219,13,14,553,6,11,12,15,16,30839,5,37857,7,8,2863,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-476014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-department-of-agriculture-food-and-the-marine","11":"tag-department-of-public-expenditure-and-reform","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-fine-gael","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-martin-heydon","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-phil-hogan","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-united-nations-un","27":"tag-world","28":"tag-world-news","29":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116543367763602511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}