Dermot Scott, at present deputy head of the EP Office in Ireland, is heading to Edinburgh in the New Year, to open the European Parliament Office in Scotland. Parliament is opening offices in Barcelona, Edinburgh, Marseilles and Milan: as Germany already has an office in Bonn and another in Berlin, all five large member states will then have a second office.
The appointment is for a pilot period, up to September 1999, with the aim of providing citizens with an improved information service in the run-up to the June 1999 elections.
Dermot Scott has been with the Parliament since 1979. He was Head of Office ad interim in Dublin in 1990-91, and deputy head thereafter. His main activities have been relations with the press and the educational system, the organisation of seminars, protocol for presidential visits and European Councils, writing and production of publications, and editing the Irish edition of EP News. He started his career at the Institute of Public Administration.
Meanwhile, each of Parliament's "external offices" is getting an extra pair of hands until the elections, and Sarah Sheil has joined the Parliament Office in Ireland as an auxiliary administrator. Since graduating in 1997, Sarah Sheil was awarded a training placement or stage with the secretariat of the Council of Ministers in Brussels, and then worked with the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin.
Our colleagues in the European Commission Representation are also on the move. Over the summer the deputy director, Raymond Keane, left to join the staff of the Commission's food and animal health unit, at present in Blackrock, and has been replaced by Philip Ryan. In October, the Director of the Commission Representation, Colm Larkin, left to take up a post in the unit advising the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Philip Ryan is acting Director until a new appointment is made.