Ireland’s top civil servants: who they are and what they earn

John Callinan, Department of the Taoiseach

Salary: €258,825 (secretary general – level 1)

Holding the twin roles of secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach and secretary general to the Government, John Callinan is the most powerful civil servant in the State, whose writ runs across the full range of government activities.

Described by one person who works with him regularly as “quietly effective”, he is said to have a command of detail and to be very particular about the need for government memos to be clear and precise. He runs the department and oversees the central decision-making process of the government machine, and the weekly Cabinet meeting and processes that lead up to and feed into it.

He has served in the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of the Taoiseach, the European Commission, and he also did a stint in Media Lab Europe, an ill-fated collaboration between the Government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the Bertie Ahern era. He joined the department in 2007, heading the EU and international division.

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In 2016 he became the department’s second secretary general, with responsibility for international, EU and British relations. He was the Taoiseach’s “sherpa” – as the senior EU adviser to EU heads of government is called – and he was particularly prominent during the Brexit negotiations, when he advised first Enda Kenny and then Leo Varadkar, and liaised with other EU “sherpas”.

He was seen by colleagues and politicians as a steady hand during the Brexit negotiations, and when Martin Fraser retired from the secretary general’s post in 2022 after more than a decade in the job (he moved to London as Irish Ambassador), Callinan’s appointment was no surprise.

Insiders say he has a more understated style than Fraser, with one source noting that he is careful to defer to the elected politicians, though both Varadkar and Micheál Martin have valued his advice highly. The son of two civil servants, he grew up on the northside of Dublin and was educated at Trinity College. His brother Kevin is the general secretary of the Fórsa trade union, and was previously president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. – Pat Leahy

[ Highly paid, but highly scrutinised - the top civil servants at the helm of Government departments ]

Robert Watt, Department of Health

Salary: €297,869 (special grade set by Government in 2021)

Robert Watt is probably the highest-profile civil servant in the country. Considered talented and able, he has, however, been involved in a few public rows and controversies in his time.

From Beaumont on the northside of Dublin, Watt was educated at Ard Scoil Rís on Griffith Avenue and later at UCD. He has a primary degree in business studies and a master’s in economics.

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He joined the Department of Finance but later left for the private sector, working with Indecon Economic Consultants and London Economics. He rejoined the department and was appointed assistant secretary with responsibility for overall expenditure policy.

In 2011, after the newly elected Fine Gael-Labour government split the Department of Finance, he became secretary general at the new Department of Public Expenditure, set up to control Government spending after the economic crash.

With Brendan Howlin as minister and Watt as secretary general, the department pushed through cuts to public service pay and introduced reforms such as to sick leave and holiday arrangements.

Watt lost out in a bid to become governor of the Central Bank in 2015. However, it was the next career move – or, more accurately, the salary accompanying it – that was to prove hugely contentious.

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In 2021 it emerged that the Government approved a pay rise of more than €90,000 for the position of secretary general of the Department of Health, making the person to be appointed to the role the highest-paid civil servant in the country.

Watt was appointed acting secretary general pending an open competition for the role, which he subsequently secured. In the Dáil, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald criticised the pay rise, declaring it “a stroke”. The row over his pay rumbled on for months.

Within the department there is a view that Watt’s appointment helped steady the ship, which was under pressure dealing with Covid and other issues. Some point to the conclusion of the new public patient-only contract for hospital consultants, long in the works, which he was involved in finalising.

Watt has had a tense relationship on occasion with politicians. There have been bad-tempered Oireachtas committee appearances and a dramatic clash of accounts between Watt and Deirdre Gillane, adviser to Tánaiste Micheál Martin, over the botched secondment of former chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan to a position at Trinity College Dublin.

Following the resignation of a number of figures from the advisory council on the implementation of the Sláintecare health reforms, former trade union leader Liam Doran argued that Watt had been dismissive, and believed those on the opposite side of the table to him were “completely wrong”.

Despite the scrapes and rows, Government Ministers have fully backed Watt, who remains a key figure in Irish public administration. – Martin Wall

John Hogan, Department of Finance

Salary: €258,825 (secretary general – level 1)

John Hogan, a native of Birr, Co Offaly, in 2021 became the 18th secretary general of the Department of Finance since the foundation of the State.

The 55-year-old was educated at St Brendan’s Community School in his hometown. Following his graduation in 1986, he joined the Department of Education, initially as an executive officer for six years in the sports section. During this time, he undertook an evening commerce degree programme at University College Dublin (UCD).

Following stints at the Department of Education and the National Centre for Technology in Education, Hogan spent time at assistant principal officer level in the Departments of Environment and Local Government, and Finance, between 2000 and 2005.

He spent three years in Brussels with Ireland’s permanent representation to the European Union, specialising in financial services, before returning to Dublin in September 2008 – at the onset of the global financial meltdown – to join the Department of Finance as a principal officer in the budget and economic division.

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In June 2009, he joined the department’s financial services division when the government of the day was bailing out the banking system. He was centrally involved in developing important emergency banking legislation during the crisis, as well as interdepartmental work to come up with ways to resolve an emerging mortgage arrears crisis at the time.

Hogan was selected in 2012 from about 30 applications to become the department’s first head of banking policy. Before being selected as secretary general of the department, he served as assistant secretary general in the tax division between 2017 and 2021.

Hogan lives in Celbridge, Co Kildare, with his wife, Theresa, three daughters and a son. He enjoys running, cycling and following the GAA, eternally hopeful of a revival in Offaly’s fortunes. – Joe Brennan

Graham Doyle, Department of Housing

Salary: €258,825 (secretary general – level 1)

One of the few individuals currently running a Government department following a career outside the Civil Service, Graham Doyle is the secretary general at the Department of Housing.

A chartered accountant from Waterford who trained with PwC, Doyle joined the Civil Service as an external entrant in 2013 when he was appointed as assistant secretary to the Department of Transport with responsibility for public transport, climate change and road safety. He became its secretary general in late 2015.

After the formation of the current Government, he was appointed secretary general of the Department of Housing in July 2020. He subsequently became involved in a dispute over the specific grade of secretary general applying to the new role.

The Government last year decided, following an independent review, that the position of secretary general should be upgraded from grade II to grade I on the salary scale, bringing it in line with pay levels at the Departments of the Taoiseach, Finance and Public Expenditure.

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Housing is the Cabinet’s ‘s top priority issue, and a key role for the secretary general is to oversee the delivery of the Government’s multibillion-euro Housing for All plan.

Doyle’s background is in business management and management consulting, with experience in insolvency, corporate finance, business strategy and airport management.

He was educated at St Paul’s Community College in Waterford and has a degree in business studies from the Southeast Technical University, as well as a master’s in accounting and an MBA from UCD. – Martin Wall

David Moloney, Department of Public Expenditure

Salary: €258,825 (secretary general – level 1)

David Moloney is secretary general at the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. A career civil servant, he has also worked at the Departments of the Taoiseach and Health.

He was appointed to his current role on a full-time basis in the summer of 2021. He had been acting in the position since the departure of Robert Watt to the Department of Health earlier that year.

Before his appointment as secretary general, Moloney was head of the labour market and enterprise division with responsibility for expenditure areas including social protection and housing, enterprise and agriculture..

The key role of Moloney’s department is to keep a close and sceptical eye on the spending plans of other departments. This is a role that critics argue it performs without sufficient concern over how a rejection of proposals – or delays in providing sanction – can affect other parts of government. – Martin Wall

Oonagh Buckley, Department of Environment, Climate and Communications

Salary: €243,600 (secretary general – level 2)

Oonagh Buckley played a key role in one of the most controversial episodes in recent Irish public administration: the Government decision to cut the pay of civil and public servants during the years of austerity after 2008 to deal with a large hole in the public finances.

Buckley was thrust into the crisis as a senior figure, initially in the Department of Finance, and later in the newly created Department of Public Expenditure.

She drafted emergency legislation that cut the pay and pensions of hundreds of thousands of civil and public servants, including those of colleagues, friends and family.

She was also a key negotiator in talks with public service unions that led to cuts to terms and conditions, but which also paved the way for the eventual restoration of remuneration.

Originally from Cork and a graduate of UCC law school in 1992, Buckley completed an MA in European Studies in the College of Europe (Bruges and Warsaw) and later obtained a Master’s in Law from University College London, concentrating on European and comparative law.

She did not practise law but joined the Civil Service, having been offered a job in the Department of Foreign Affairs in advance of Ireland’s presidency of the EU in 1993. She was called to the Bar in 1996.

She later moved to the Department of the Environment and was closely involved in drawing up significant planning legislation of 2000, facilitating the provision of social and affordable housing.

She was also a director of the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Buckley was appointed to succeed Kieran Mulvey in 2016 after Mulvey’s retirement as head of the Workplace Relations Commission.

In 2018 she was appointed as deputy secretary general in the Department of Justice, where she was responsible for civil law, immigration, courts and legislation.

In November 2022, the Government appointed her as the interim chair of An Bord Pleanála after it was rocked by a series of controversies.

Last summer, the Government announced Buckley was to be the new secretary general of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications.

She has an MSc in Business from the Smurfit School in UCD and has been an adjunct professor in the School of Law of UCC since 2017. – Martin Wall

[ Women outperform men in getting senior jobs in Civil Service, Government report finds  ]

Oonagh McPhillips, Department of Justice

Salary: €243,600 (secretary general – level 2)

Oonagh McPhillips, secretary general of the Department of Justice, is far from the picture that the public may have of the typical top civil servant – male, middle-aged and greying.

Raised off the Whitworth Road in Drumcondra, McPhillips is a Dublin northsider to her core. Educated at Holy Faith in Glasnevin, she joined the Civil Service as a temporary clerical trainee, a post long since abolished.

“I have been at every level, so I know what it’s like to be an executive officer, or a higher executive officer who can’t get promoted. Sometimes it feels to them that all of the bosses have always been bosses,” she says, with a smile.

She went to university at 40 and holds a master’s degree in communication from Dublin City University.

She was appointed to her current role in 2020, and is the first woman in the State’s history to hold the post. She has spent most of her career at the Department of Justice, bar a period as a civilian manager in the Garda Siochána and a brief stint as a junior speechwriter in Aras an Uachtarain.

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In 2019, she was part of the top team that carried out a complete reorganisation of the department – the first and so far the only department to be refashioned in this way. – Mark Hennessy

Joe Hackett, Department of Foreign Affairs

Salary: €243,600 (secretary general – level 2)

Joe Hackett has been secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs since 2021 following a series of diplomatic and other senior postings in Brussels, the United States and Ireland.

From Dublin, he studied history and politics at UCD before joining the department in 1995.

A graduate of Coláiste Phádraig, a Christian Brothers school in Lucan in Dublin, he was in the same class as another secretary general – Kevin McCarthy of the Department of Children.

Before his appointment as secretary general, he served as director general of the EU division for the previous two years.

He worked in Brussels as deputy permanent representative of Ireland to the European Union (2017-2019) and as permanent representative to the EU’s political and security committee (2013-2017).

From 2009 to 2013, he was director of the Irish Abroad Unit and Global Irish Network at the department.

A former political and press officer at the Irish Embassy in Washington DC, he was director for North American affairs at Iveagh House, the department’s HQ in Dublin, in 2012 and 2013.

Hackett’s stint as secretary general coincided with Ireland’s term on the UN Security Council, and he dealt with Ireland’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza.

He has also overseen a significant expansion of Ireland’s diplomatic presence around the world, with seven additional missions announced.

Outside of work, friends say he is a big soccer fan and a supporter of Liverpool. Colleagues say he enjoys running, all sports and walking his dogs. – Martin Wall

John McKeon, Department of Social Protection

Salary: €243,600 (secretary general – level 2)

John McKeon is another figure in the senior ranks of the Civil Service to have previously worked in the private sector.

He joined the Department of Social Protection in 2010 and held assistant secretary general positions with responsibility for activation policy, the development and implementation of the Pathways to Work programme, and the modernisation of the department’s public office (Intreo) services.

He was appointed secretary general in 2017.

Before joining the department, McKeon worked for telecom firm Eircom, where he was head of global carrier services and wholesale managing director.

Originally from Dublin’s north inner city, he was educated at St Vincent’s CBS Glasnevin. He holds a BA in Public Administration and an MBA from DCU, specialising in finance, marketing, business strategy, HR operations, law and economics.

McKeon also recently completed the executive public leaders programme at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. – Sarah Burns

Brendan Gleeson, Department of Agriculture

Salary: €243,600 (secretary general – level 2)

Brendan Gleeson was appointed secretary general of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine In October 2018.

Before this he had served in a number of senior leadership roles in the department, with responsibility for areas such as international trade, Brexit, Common Agricultural Policy development and sectoral policy development in the meat and livestock sectors.

He also had responsibility for governance in a number of State agencies, and served as a member of the Teagasc Authority and in policy and operational roles in the Department of Industry and Commerce and the European Commission.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in management law from Trinity College Dublin and diplomas in Law and Public Administration. – Sarah Burns

Declan Hughes, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment

Salary: €243,600 (secretary general – level 2)

Declan Hughes was appointed secretary general at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in May 2023.

He joined the department in 2014 as assistant secretary, heading the Strategic Policy Division, and subsequently had responsibility for policy development and funding programmes for inward investment and enterprise innovation and for indigenous enterprise, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and entrepreneurship divisions.

He was formerly on the executive committee of the enterprise, trade, science and technology advisory agency, Forfás.

Hughes has also led a range of national and regional policy and funding initiatives, including on ecommerce, enterprise and trade strategies, skills and research prioritisation, regional enterprise plans, the Action Plan for Jobs and Brexit and Covid-19 business supports.

Hughes is a commerce graduate and holds a master’s and postgraduate diploma from the Smurfit Graduate School of Business, UCD.

He has served as a board member of IDA Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and Enterprise Ireland. He was also a member of the National Competitiveness Council and has served on EU and OECD committees.

As secretary general, Hughes advises the Government and leads the department and its offices and agencies in promoting the creation of employment. – Sarah Burns

Bernie McNally, Department of Education

Salary: €243,600 (secretary general – level 2)

Bernie McNally, secretary general at the Department of Education, was appointed just over two years ago.

Originally from Co Monaghan, she previously served as assistant secretary at the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, where she had responsibility for the disability and youth division.

She has worked in several departments and offices, including in the Department of Health and as director of the Office of the Ombudsman and Information Commissioner.

In her earlier career she worked as an occupational therapist, and was later a director of therapy and social work services at St James’s Hospital, Dublin.

She worked as an adviser in the Department of Health from 2004 to 2008.

She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Trinity College Dublin.

She is regarded as an effective communicator who keeps herself briefed on upcoming education issues through regular meetings with parties across the eduction sector.

Incorporating the voices of young people in policy issues affecting them – a feature of work at the Department of Children – has been extended to the Department of Education under her watch.

“She is highly personable and very good at building relationships,” says one source.

“It is a vitally important role in the education sector, which requires a lot of seeing around corners and knowing what issues will likely cause controversy, and being prepared for that.” – Carl O’Brien

Kevin McCarthy, Department of Children

Salary: €243,600 (secretary general – level 2)

Kevin McCarthy occupies one of the most challenging positions in Irish public administration, dealing with the issue of immigration and the need to secure accommodation for those arriving into the country.

A career public servant, McCarthy initially worked in the Department of Health before moving to the former East Coast Area Health Board in 2000.

He later moved to the Department of Education, initially as a principal officer, before being promoted to assistant secretary in June 2008. He became secretary general of the Department of Community and Rural Affairs in 2017 and secretary general of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth in 2022.

He attended the Christian Brothers school in Lucan in Dublin in the 1980s at the same time as fellow secretary general Joe Hackett, who runs the Department of Foreign Affairs.

As his department expanded, McCarthy received a salary increase from €222,911 to €235,294 last year after the Government upgraded this position and that of the secretary general in the Department of Housing. The Government said the pay hikes reflected the bigger departments the these officials ran.

Minister for Public Enterprise Paschal Donohoe said the Department of Housing was involved in managing the delivery of more housing in Ireland, while the Department of Children had taken on the additional and complex responsibilities of integration and inclusion.

McCarthy is said to have a strong working relationship with Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman.

Given the increase in the number of refugees and asylum seekers arriving into the country over the last two to three years, there has been significant focus on the work of the department and on the policy decisions taken by senior officials.

It is unsurprising, then, that McCarthy has found himself in the headlines, as he clashed behind the scenes with his counterpart at the Department of Housing, Graham Doyle.

Doyle privately warned there was a “serious risk” that significant numbers of asylum seekers would be left sleeping rough after being ordered to leave direct provision accommodation, having secured permission to remain in the State.

In a letter to McCarthy last year, Doyle said he was concerned about a “new expectation” that responsibility to accommodate individuals who had status to remain in the State would shift to homeless services, which were already under pressure.

In response, McCarthy said those granted status were “free to avail of supports available to any Irish citizen”, including emergency accommodation if they became homeless.

The exchange was a sign of the tensions within Government departments as the Coalition continues to struggle to find accommodation for new arrivals. - Jennifer Bray

Ken Spratt, Department of Transport

Salary: €243,600 (secretary general – level 2)

Born in Ballymun and raised in Finglas, Spratt joined the Civil Service straight from Ardscoil Rís on Griffith Avenue in Dublin in 1986, working alongside future secretary general to the government Martin Fraser, to whom he remains close. He has served in six departments, as well as overseas as first secretary at the Irish Embassy in Washington DC and as Ireland’s governor at the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

He played Gaelic football to a high level, including appearances for Dublin in national league campaigns in the mid ‘90s, and he captained the storied Erin’s Isle team of the era. His association with the GAA would continue, and he was shortlisted for the role of director general of the organisation in 2018.

Spratt was assistant secretary in the then Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, as Pat Rabbitte fought a rearguard action against privatisation of energy infrastructure during the austerity era, where he impressed his political masters in a brief that was seen as “phenomenally complex”. One contemporary remembers him as “an immensely diligent” public servant.

He became an assistant secretary at the Department of Sport in 2016 and was deeply involved in managing the fallout from some of the scandals that beset Irish sport at this time – including accompanying then minister Shane Ross to Rio during the Pat Hickey ticketing scandal, and playing a central role in managing the department’s response to the turmoil in the FAI. Those who worked with him at the time recall his diligence, in particular his compulsive note-taking and frank advice.

Ross told The Irish Times that Spratt was “the finest civil servant in my department”. Others who have worked with him say he is “direct, not one for small talk” and “doesn’t suffer fools”.

As the top civil servant in the Department of Transport, he sits next to one of the fault lines in government around progressing roads alongside the Minister Eamon Ryan’s green agenda. – Jack Horgan-Jones

Jacqui McCrum, Department of Defence

Salary: €230,780 (secretary general – level 3)

Jacqui McCrum became first female secretary general in the Department of Defence when she was appointed in 2020.

Originally from Rush, Co Dublin, she attended Holy Faith in Skerries before entering the banking sector.

She spent the first half of her professional career working for AIB London, where she managed several branches of the bank. In 1999, she moved into head office and quickly progressed up the corporate ladder before being appointed AIB’s head of treasury business control in 2012.

The following year, she joined the public sector when she was appointed deputy ombudsman of the Financial Services Ombudsman’s Bureau of Ireland, where she managed the bureau’s amalgamation with the Pensions Ombudsman’s office.

She also acted as the bureau’s director for a period before being appointed as director general of the Office of the Ombudsman in 2015.

During this time she also served on several State commissions, including the Standards in Public Office and Referendum commissions.

Her next role was at the Department of Social Protection, where she was deputy secretary general for a year before her appointment as secretary general at the Department of Defence in 2020.

The department is seen by some as a Civil Service backwater, given the tiny size of Ireland’s military. However, McCrum enjoys a surprising amount of power. As well as serving, alongside the Defence Forces Chief of Staff, as the chief defence adviser to the Minister, she is the accounting officer for both the department and the Defence Forces.

This power comes at the expense of the Defence Forces Chief of Staff who, because of the unusual nature of Ireland’s military command structure, technically has few command and control powers over his troops.

Instead, all big orders come from the Minister, which in fact means they usually come from the department and its senior staff, including McCrum.

This means there has historically been significant tension between the department and the generals. However, on her appointment, McCrum was seen as a breath of fresh air.

“She has brought a perspective that in many ways is similar to mine in terms of outlook and outreach and can-do,” said then chief of staff, Vice Admiral Mark Mellett, shortly after her appointment.

McCrum is overseeing the biggest overhaul of the Defence Forces in decades, including a 50 per cent increase in spending by 2028 and the replacement of the Chief of Staff position with a “Chief of Defence” who will enjoy much more power.

She has been appointed to an external oversight body tasked with culturally transforming the Defence Forces and tackling abuse, bullying and discrimination.

McCrum lives in north Dublin with her husband Maurice and their two children. – Conor Gallagher

Feargal Ó Coigligh, Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Media and Sport

Salary: €230,780 (secretary general – level 3)

Feargal Ó Coigligh was appointed secretary general in January, having previously been assistant secretary in the Department of Housing.

He was assistant secretary for culture and arts from 2015 to 2018, where he oversaw the Decade of Centenaries programme, including the Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme. He also previously had responsibility for heritage policy, including the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Originally from Co Louth, Ó Coigligh is a past pupil of Coláiste Rís CBS in Dundalk. He graduated from the University of Galway with an arts degree in 1989.

Ó Coigligh replaced Katherine Licken as secretary general at the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Media and Sport, who stepped down earlier this year, having completed seven years in the position. It was revealed recently that Licken received a severance payment of almost €220,000.

A fluent Irish speaker, Ó Coigligh was prominent in Irish-language politics in the University of Galway when a student there in the late 1980s. He was also a prominent member of An Cumann Éigse agus Seanchais and An Cumann Drámaíochta.

Ó Coigligh’s appointment is seen as a boon to the Gaeltacht and Irish language sections of the department, which, some critics say, have not always appeared to be the most pressing priorities for the Minister, Catherine Martin, or the Minister of State for the Gaeltacht Patrick O’Donovan. – Sarah Burns and Harry McGee

Mary Hurley, Department of Community and Rural Development

Salary: €230,780 (secretary general – level 3)

Mary Hurley was appointed secretary general at the Department of Community and Rural Development in March 2022.

Before her promotion, she served as an assistant secretary at the Department of Housing. During her time there, she held responsibility for policy areas such as local government, fire and emergency management, homelessness, regeneration, and community and rural development.

Hurley worked across a number of departments, including the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, where she played a key role in the 1916 commemorations.

From Santry, in north Dublin, Hurley was educated at the Dominican College on Griffith Avenue. She is a graduate of University College Dublin, from which she has an arts degree in English and History and a master’s degree in History. Hurley is described as coming from a family “steeped in the Civil Service”. – Sarah Burns

Colm O’Reardon, Department of Further and Higher Education

Salary: €230,780 (secretary general – level 3)

Colm O’Reardon, secretary general of the Department of Further and Higher Education, is one of the few people to transition from being a Government adviser to a senior civil servant running a Government department.

He was previously a member of Eamon Gilmore’s inner circle when the Dún Laoghaire TD was Labour leader, serving as the party’s director of policy.

When Labour entered Government following the 2011 general election, he became an adviser to Gilmore, who was tánaiste in the coalition with Fine Gael.

A brother of Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, he subsequently worked in Brussels with the European Commission’s in-house think tank, the European Political Strategy Centre.

In 2015, O’Reardon was appointed to a senior post in the Department of Health following a competition run by the Top Level Appointments Commission.

After the departure of Jim Breslin with the Minister (and incoming taoiseach), Simon Harris, to the new Department of Further and Higher Education in 2020, O’Reardon became acting secretary general in the Department of Health.

He was to follow the same path a couple of years later and was appointed secretary general of the Department of Further and Higher Education in September 2023.

He is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Churchill College Cambridge and Wolfson College Oxford. He holds a D Phil in Economics from the University of Oxford, where he was also a Rhodes scholar. – Martin Wall

Orla O’Hanrahan, secretary general to the office of the President, Michael D Higgins

Salary: €230,780 (secretary general – level 3)

Orla O’Hanrahan was a career diplomat before becoming secretary general to the office of President Michael D Higgins in May 2021. At the time of her appointment, she was director general of the Global Irish Services Division at the Department of Foreign Affairs.

O’Hanrahan succeeded the highly regarded Art O’Leary, now chief executive of the Electoral Commission, in the Áras. The President must approve the nominees.

President Higgins had occasion to observe O’Hanrahan’s work at close quarters. As the department’s chief of protocol she was central to organising the State visit of the President to England in 2014, including the royal banquet hosted by Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. Later, in 2018, as ambassador to Greece, she accompanied Higgins when he visited asylum camps for Syrian refugees.

O’Hanrahan joined the department in 1979 after completing a degree in history and politics in TCD. Her first foreign posting was to London in the 1980s at the height of the Troubles when there was much tension between the Irish and British governments, alleviated somewhat by the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985. It was there she met her husband, Claude Malone, then director of the Irish Centre in Camden. They have two grown-up children.

After serving as press officer in the Paris Embassy for five years until 1995, she was appointed consul general in Boston. Her deputy there was Joe Hackett, who is now secretary general of the department.

O’Hanrahan was well received in Boston and was regarded as approachable, efficient and hard-working. She was there for the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998.

In her subsequent career, she also served as deputy chief of mission in Washington DC, as ambassador to Sweden and as ambassador to Greece. – Harry McGee

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