Mr. Seán Murphy:

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade attracts a certain kind of personality that may not be particularly process focused. They are diplomats focused on the softer diplomatic measures that are crucially important for the State. The issues we are seeking to improve are, effectively, plumbing issues, the processing of passports and the like. From our perspective, as a governmental agency, they have great difficulty staffing up, even on a part-time basis, for the peaks and troughs that appear before the summertime period for passports. That is where a private sector operator could staff up or staff down, depending on the peaks and troughs that would apply.

In terms of festivals, it is worth noting that we also work closely with local government. Our local government awards have a "Festival the Year" award each year; Cavan would have won in the past, as Deputy Brendan Smith may be aware. We will do that on the ground in terms of profiling those initiatives locally and also profiling the partnership between local businesses, be they multinational or local and the local authorities in developing those initiatives.