INTERVIEW
Leading from the front Oonagh McPhillips, Secretary General at the Department of Justice, speaks about her experience as a female leader, and the Department’s work on equality and diversity. Transformation Oonagh says that the Department’s ability to deal with the pandemic has been helped in no small part by the ambitious restructuring project it underwent beforehand. The largest such project ever undertaken by a Government department,
Ann-Marie Hardiman Managing Editor, Think Media Ltd.
it was led by Oonagh’s predecessor, Aidan O’Driscoll, and completed in September 2019: “In several key areas, it definitely gave us a resilience that we didn't have before. If you look at high-risk issues during the pandemic, we had more focus, depth and scope to innovate on key issues such as domestic abuse, where good
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As Secretary General of the Department of Justice, Oonagh McPhillips leads a
work was done by the Department and the whole sector, very much in partnership
department that employs over 3,000 people. As they prepare for the easing of
with frontline NGOs, to support people at risk. Also in terms of communicating with
Covid-19 restrictions (our interview takes place in September, as the first return to
all our agencies, we had new dedicated governance functions, which kept agencies
work deadlines kick in), that scale is reflected in the fact that approximately 600
connected with developments and rapidly changing circumstances, and it’s widely
new staff have joined in the 18 months since the start of the pandemic. “That’s a
recognised that they did that very effectively. We also worked closely with colleagues
huge proportion of people who by and large have never stood in the office, have
in Health to support them with drafting and project management experts at different
never met their colleagues face to face”.
stages of the pandemic”.
Of course, while many Department staff did completely shift to working from home,
The changes will be reviewed over time, but Oonagh wants to see how the new
many others remained in their workplaces, such as some teams working in immigration,
functional structure operates in “peace time” for a while: “The organisation has a
international protection, border management, financial services, and of course frontline
very broad remit and that doesn’t stand still – we will keep reviewing our design
agencies such as An Garda Síochána, the Courts Service, the Irish Prison Service,
and skillset to make sure we can deliver for the public. Our feeling is that it is a
Probation, Forensic Science Ireland, State Pathologists, and many others. Oonagh is
robust structure, but we will do an in-depth review when that’s timely”.
extremely proud of all of the staff, and praises those whose job it has been to keep
As we move out of restrictions, there are obviously priorities for the Department in
things running safely, from IT and health and safety, to facilities management. She
terms of areas of work and services that have suffered in these last months. Oonagh
singles out the Irish Prison Service in particular: “They can often be overlooked as a
mentions the Department’s immigration function, which is still largely paper based,
key frontline service but behind closed doors and high walls they've done amazing
and says that this has made her team more committed than ever to the next stage
work. Their record of keeping people in their care safe during Covid is unique
of their transformation, a new information management and technology (IMT)
worldwide. Critical to that has been the partnership between staff and the men and
strategy. Parts of this digitisation process have already begun, such as the new
women in prisons. Over 100 of them had trained over the last few years as Red Cross
website for the immigration service, and Oonagh says these innovations are being
volunteers, and they acted as peer supports to get messages out around the system
designed with the customer/user in mind. She acknowledges the benefits and the
in a way that people in prisons trusted. That communication was critical to keeping
limitations of the technologies that have been essential during the pandemic: “The
people safe, and it’s really important to recognise their contribution”.
whole world has learned to appreciate what tech can do for us. It's quite good at
THE BAR REVIEW : Volume 26; Number 5 – November 2021
