Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Global Irish Economic Forum was probably one of the best initiatives of both the previous Government and this Government in terms of our reaching out to our diaspora abroad. I will not go into all the questions involved but implementation is a concern I have always raised. Resources were not given to the Department of Foreign Affairs to do all that was laid down by the first and second global economic forums. I refer to interdepartmental committees. If the witnesses do not have the answers they might send them to the Chairman. There was an interdepartmental group and an advisory and implementation group for the Global Irish Network, for which the Tánaiste was responsible. How many times did it meet? It is very difficult to get different Departments together to move issues forward. The Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach was to examine the form of the outcome and make progress reports. How many times did that happen? Seed funding was one of the suggested outcomes, a good idea that was based on the experience of other countries such as Israel, which had microfinancing. How much money was given out in this area?

The Global Irish Economic Forum was a wonderful initiative. Many people from around the world were willing to come to Dublin and give their time and effort. In addition, the Department of Foreign Affairs, which has much to do already, was asked to do a monumental task, one for which Israel has its very own department. Our diaspora is larger than the Israeli one yet the Department of Foreign Affairs is obliged to do not only what a completely separate department in Israel does but also all the work of the Department must do on top of that. Given the situation in the North, a separate department is almost required to handle that as well.

It might be an idea if somebody was to benchmark what was promised two years ago and point out how many meetings there had been, even down to the updates. That was one of the suggestions that came from the Global Irish Economic Forum. Were those who came kept informed and told that in the past month such and such has happened? I do not believe anybody wants to get an e-mail every month but there should be one every two or three months outlining what progress there has been. My fear is that an excellent concept, one which the Department does very well in trying to administer, is simply under-resourced in terms of the manpower required to be able to meet all the requests made of it after the first two forums. If the Government does not properly resource the Department, if people do not see the outcomes they were hoping to achieve and are not kept informed, they may not come to the third or fourth forum. What was a great idea might then peter out.