373. Deputy Robert O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of EU Presidency policy and administrative officers now employed on temporary contracts across his Department, in Ireland and abroad; if these individuals can apply to internal civil service competitions for these temporary contracts; the plans being developed to retain these individuals once their contracts cease, given they will have extensive and intimate knowledge of EU and Irish institutional operations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54597/26]

My Department ran a recruitment competition for temporary interns at AO level to work on Ireland's EU Presidency in late 2025. A similar recruitment competition was run by my Department in 2012 seeking temporary staff for the 2013 Presidency.

16 temporary interns were appointed from the 2025 competition and have been assigned to various units with EU Presidency duties within my Department. The contracts for these staff are currently due to end on 31st December 2026 and due to the temporary nature of these appointments these interns are not eligible to apply for internal promotion competitions in my Department. However, they are eligible to apply for any open recruitment competitions within the Civil and Public service and hopefully their experience in working on the EP Presidency would be a benefit to them in such competitions.

A further 2 policy officers at AO level were recruited by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to work in Brussels on Presidency issues related to my Department.

The vast majority of staff in my Department who are working on issues related to Ireland's Presidency of the EU are permanent staff and will bring the benefit of the experience of EU and International issues they gain in this period to the Department and the Civil Service in general.