{"id":70153,"date":"2025-09-17T19:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T19:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/70153\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T19:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T19:32:07","slug":"two-sisters-to-head-separate-government-departments-for-first-time-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/70153\/","title":{"rendered":"Two sisters to head separate Government departments for first time \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">For the first time two sisters will serve as top officials in Government departments at the same time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The Government on Wednesday approved the appointment of Sin\u00e9ad McPhillips as the new secretary general of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/department-of-agriculture-food-and-the-marine\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/department-of-agriculture-food-and-the-marine\/\">Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">She is the sister of Oonagh McPhillips, the current secretary general of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/department-of-justice\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/department-of-justice\/\">Department of Justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It is understood that there have only been 12 women previously who served as secretaries general of a Government department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sin\u00e9ad McPhillips is currently assistant secretary for EU, UK and International Affairs in the Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">This involved leading on agri-food negotiations at EU level, implementing Ireland\u2019s Common Agricultural Policy strategic plan and managing the department\u2019s overseas network. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">She previously served as assistant secretary general with responsibility for agri-food strategy and sectoral development and as the Department of Agriculture\u2019s chief economist. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Her qualifications include masters degrees in international human rights law and in economic science.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ms McPhilips and her sister are from Drumcondra in Dublin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/podcasts\/inside-politics\/why-are-there-still-so-few-women-in-irish-politics\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Why are there still so few women in Irish politics?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The Department of Agriculture said that the period ahead would be characterised by profound developments in policy at EU level, including through new Common Fisheries and Agriculture Policies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIreland will hold the presidency of the EU Council in the second half of 2026, and the preparations for and execution of this responsibility will be a significant focus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Minister for Agriculture <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/martin-heydon\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/martin-heydon\/\">Martin Heydon<\/a> said: \u201cSin\u00e9ad has been a senior leader in the department for the last decade, and I am confident that under her leadership the department can continue to deliver for the Irish agriculture, food, forestry and fisheries sectors. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI look forward to working closely with Sin\u00e9ad as we deliver on our commitments in the Programme for Government: Securing Ireland\u2019s Future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The appointment on Tuesday followed a competition undertaken by the Public Appointments Service on behalf the Top Level Appointments Commission. She succeeds Brendan Gleeson who has retired following seven years as secretary general of the Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time two sisters will serve as top officials in Government departments at the same time.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,13169,15778,30330,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-70153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-department-of-justice","11":"tag-department-of-agriculture-food-and-the-marine","12":"tag-drumcondra","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70153","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=70153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}