Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Blue rinse, perhaps. The ambassador mentioned the advantage it is to have representatives from the Departments of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Agriculture, Food and the Marine, based in the Embassy in London. Is that a new departure? Was that always the case or is it a result of the addition of the trade portfolio to foreign affairs to form the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade? Did they work at greater arms length in the past?

On the issue of whether Britain would vote to leave the European Union, I have occasion to meet English people and to a man they would vote to get out of Europe, they blame Europe for everything, even for the weather. My two children work in London in what could be broadly called the City and they and all their colleagues are horrified at the prospect of Britain leaving the EU. Generally they think that the business community would be very much against Britain leaving the EU. If a similar proposition was put to the people in Ireland, once the campaign got going different sectors would come out in favour of staying in. Are there other sectors that are silent, in that we have not heard from them, in Britain? Will we hear from different sectors when a campaign starts or does Ambassador Mulhall sense that the vast majority of English people want to get out of the EU? The ambassador may not want to answer that question.