Katherine Zappone's role as a special envoy for Ireland's bid for a United Nations Security Council seat added "status" to the campaign which came to fruition in 2020, according to a value for money assessment of such positions.
The analysis formed part of a review of special envoy roles that followed the controversy over the ill-fated bid to appoint former Independent minister Ms Zappone to a subsequent special envoy role on freedom of expression last year.
There had been no open competition and the Government was forced to deny Opposition claims of cronyism.
She ultimately declined the job amid the political row over her appointment.
The subsequent review of special envoys found that the diplomatic jobs should be appointed in an “open, accountable and transparent manner”.
The analysis of the costs of special envoys was carried out by consultancy organisation Sia Partners, whose managing partner Jane Williams was part of the review team along with senior Department of Foreign Affairs officials.
A document entitled “Assessment of value for money – background notes” was released under Freedom of Information laws.
It says: “In the time available a detailed cost-benefit or value for money assessment could not be carried out.”
‘Outcomes and impacts’
The assessment “looked at the available information on the outcomes and impacts achieved and compared these to the additional costs incurred to carry out the special envoy roles”.
The document says: “It is difficult then to disaggregate the incremental impact of special envoys from the work of Irish diplomacy, save to rely on the outcome of specific goals, eg winning the Security Council seat.”
It says Ireland was successful "against strong competition" in securing the votes for its appointment to the Security Council in June 2020.
Twelve special envoys including then minister for children Ms Zappone and serving and retired diplomats worked on the campaign and their costs came to just over €292,000.
The document says: “The special envoy role of the appointed government minister added status to this campaign.”
It adds: “The qualitative evidence suggests that Ireland’s special envoys contributed to the outcome.”
Other documents released show that €12,152 was spent on travel-related costs for Ms Zappone.
Five retired diplomats who worked on the campaign got ex-gratia payments of €10,000 each while one - former Department of Foreign Affairs secretary general and ambassador David Cooney waived the payment. Neither the serving diplomats nor Ms Zappone got extra payments.
‘Initiative spending’
The value for money assessment also found that the four special envoy missions in existence during the period examined cost a combined total of just under €350,000 – or an average of €87,500 each – and that this “appears modest, in the scale of Government programme or initiative spending”.
The role of former Fine Gael TD John Deasy as a special envoy to the United States Congress on the Undocumented Irish cost €55,407 in travel-related costs.
The assessment looked at spending on envoy roles up to September 2021.
At that point there was combined spending of just €1,205 for two of the roles: Kenneth Thompson's appointment as special envoy to Francophone Africa and Tom Arnold as special envoy on food systems.
Travel related to their work was curtailed by the Covid-19 pandemic during much of 2021, though both were able to go abroad, Mr Thompson travelling to Gabon, Burkina Faso and Niger and Mr Arnold going to Brussels.
Both participated in numerous virtual meetings during 2021 and plan to undertake travel in 2022, though this will be contingent on the state of Covid-19 restrictions.
Mr Arnold is to be paid a €5,000 honorarium for 2021 shortly, while Mr Thompson will be paid €25,000 for last year. Their roles are both due to expire at in December this year.
