GREEN SENATOR Deirdre de Burca has said it would be “inappropriate” for her to comment on speculation she is being considered for a position on incoming EU commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn’s cabinet.
The Wicklow-based Senator said she had not been offered a job. Ms de Burca, who is her party’s European affairs spokeswoman, contested the European elections unsuccessfully in June.
“I’m saying very clearly to people I’ve been made no offer so, therefore, it would be extremely inappropriate for me to comment,” she said.
Ms Geoghegan-Quinn this week chose Irishman John Bell as her chef de cabinet. Mr Bell is chef de cabinet for Meglena Kuneva, the outgoing Bulgarian commissioner with the consumer affairs portfolio, and he worked previously in the cabinet of former Irish commissioner David Byrne.
Ms Geoghegan-Quinn was nominated last month to the research and innovation portfolio, and her confirmation hearing will take place in the European Parliament in January. Meanwhile, the Green Party’s former mayor of Galway Niall Ó Brolcháin looks set to fill the Seanad vacancy caused by the election of Labour’s Alan Kelly to the European Parliament in June.
The result is expected on Monday. The byelection caused by the death of Fianna Fáil’s Peter Callanan, from Innishannon, Co Cork, occurs on January 19th.
Fianna Fáil’s James Carroll filled the vacancy created when Senator Tony Kett died in April.
:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/irishtimes/4a594789-7fb0-4c33-955f-b321dc1c60e2.png)