I refer the Deputy to Parliamentary Questions No. 303, 304, 305, 310 and 311 of 26 May 2021, Parliamentary Question No. 777 of 24 March 2021 and Parliamentary Question No. 84 of 22 September 2021 on international election observation.
The Department of Foreign Affairs facilitates an Election Observation Roster of suitably skilled and vetted volunteers who are available to participate at short notice in election observation missions, organised by the OSCE and EU. The current Roster of approximately 199 volunteers is in place since 1 January 2019.
Participation in election observation missions poses particular COVID-19 risks due to transit through international airport hubs, extensive in-country travel and interactions with observers from a significant number of other countries. This potentially exposes to Covid-19 not only election monitors, but also those with whom they interact with in the host country and when they return home. As such, since March 2020, Ireland has not nominated election observers for EU or OSCE Election Observation Missions (EOMs).
The OSCE issued a call on 21 September for the nomination of Long Term and Short Term Observers for an EOM in Uzbekistan for upcoming elections scheduled to take place on 24 October. The deadline for nominations of election observers was 30 September. For the reasons outlined above, Ireland did not nominate LTOs or STOs for this EOM.
However, given the re-opening of non-essential international travel and the progress of Ireland’s vaccination programme, my officials have been working to clarify the safe conditions for volunteer election observers before, during and after their participation in Election Observation Missions. This work is now complete and and it is my intention to nominate observers to missions on a case by case basis, subject to adjudication of duty of care.
As the Deputy will be aware, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) manages its election observation mission through a core team of experts, which leads the monitoring and is directly recruited, which can be supplemented by long-term observers (LTOs) and short-term observers (STOs) nominated by OSCE Member States.
Applications to join the core team are managed directly by the OSCE-ODIHR through a recruitment procedure that is open to citizens of OSCE participating states, including Ireland. The Department of Foreign Affairs has no role in this process. Roles as head of electoral missions, or core team members for either the OSCE or the EU are thus entirely separate from the process of nomination by Member States for LTO or STO roles, including the volunteer election observation roster operated by this Department.
My officials have become aware through open OSCE channels that an Irish citizen, who is a member of ODIHR’s core team of experts, has been designated the head of an international election observation mission to Uzbekistan. As I have already indicated, such appointments are entirely at the discretion of the OSCE itself and are not a matter for Member States.
The individual in question did not request any briefing material or other supports in relation to the mission to Uzbekistan, and none were provided by my officials.
