Former Fine Gael minister and European commissioner for trade Phil Hogan seems to want to be the new Bob Geldof, keen, he assures us, to “help the millions of people that need help in relation to food security and nutrition”. He wants to do this by becoming the next director general of the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation. He said he is ready to “serve once again” by obtaining the €225,000 per annum job.

At the launch of his bid this week, where the attendance included several Fine Gael grandees, Feed-the-World Phil dismissed the idea that controversy over his actions in 2020 – when he attended a dinner during Covid-19 restrictions, leading to his resignation as a European commissioner – might impede his chances. He suggested that was only a journalistic preoccupation: “We have gone into the history lesson on that ... I was sloppy in relation to the guidelines that were there at the time. I made a fulsome apology.” Fulsome means excessive or insincere.

To “serve once again”, he said he would spend a “significant six-figure sum” of his own money, but he is also to receive the assistance of two staff from the Department of Agriculture.

Hogan is obviously a very wealthy man: his consultancy firm, Hogan Strategic Advisory Services, earned at least €1 million in 2024, with banking giant JP Morgan Chase and........

© The Irish Times