OUR ambassador in Moscow, Ronan Murphy, is stepping down to take up a post with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, in Geneva. He will leave the Department of Foreign Affairs on a career break within the next month to become speechwriter/ adviser/consultant.
The ambassador and the former president met when he was head of development aid at the DFA and was much involved in Mrs Robinson's trips to Rwanda and Somalia. Obviously a good working relationship was established.
It's unusual for an ambassador to change careers, however temporarily, but Murphy, whose brother Barry Murphy is head of the OPW, is only in his early 50s. He has been in Russia for three years, and Moscow, always a hardship post, is now considered a most unattractive place to live.
It is also unusual that Mrs Robinson is taking someone from Foreign Affairs, in that it is known that when she took up the UN job the Department offered her a diplomat with UN experience to assist her over the initial period, but she turned it down. Needless to say the mandarins in Iveagh House are already speculating on who will get Murphy's job.