European Union
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-09
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Niall Collins (FF), Limerick County

The strategy I referred to, A Career for EU, is delivering results. Ireland has 43 permanent officials at key entry grades in the European Commission as of December 2025. That is up from 30 in 2022. A total of 1,733 Irish people applied to the AD5 competition, which is the first large-scale graduate recruitment competition since 2019, placing Ireland tenth out of the 27 member states on a per capita basis. In January of 2026, Dr. Lorraine Nolan took up office as the executive director of the European Union Drugs Agency. That makes her the third Irish national currently leading an EU agency. There is a lot going on in that space but the points the Deputy raised are very relevant and pertinent. It is certainly something we are going to seek to keep prioritising.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-09