Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will expand on Deputy Byrne's question. Professor Tonra emphasised the importance of the diaspora. The diaspora is very important, given that there are 70 million people of Irish origin worldwide. How important does he believe the role of the Global Economic Forum is? As Deputy Byrne asked, are we making best use of our diaspora abroad? One should look at Israel, a small country similar to Ireland, and the use it makes of its diaspora, in particular in regard to attracting foreign direct investment into its country. It has a minister for the diaspora. Could we do more in that area?

Professor Tonra spoke about the embassies and the important role they play. Deputy Byrne referred to the lack of resources and the fact we have had to close some embassies. Hopefully, we will be able to change that in the near future after this review. We talk about Ireland being small but so many of our embassy networks abroad are small also. They are one-man operations with maybe one local staff member. Is it better to have presence in a country rather than have no presence? I am thinking of the success of our consulate general's office in Atlanta, which is a one-man operation with one local staff member. We have three embassies in South America. Maybe we should have an embassy in Chile and in other countries in South America. Should we have a more extensive network in these areas also?

Professor Tonra mentioned the important role of honorary counsels. I have travelled a bit and made use of honorary counsels. For instance, the committee was in Jordan earlier this year where we have an honorary consul, Mr. Ramsey Khoury, who has done tremendous work for Ireland. It was as if he was Irish given the importance he attaches to his role of honorary consul. Professor Tonra spoke about giving them extra resources. Would a way around the resource issue be to give more resources to the honorary consuls to play an important role? Social media should be used more also. They are some ideas on how we can use the network abroad. We are looking at Indonesia, a place where there are tremendous opportunities for Irish companies, but we have no embassy there. Should we be more focused? Should we follow trade? Should we have a more extensive network like Denmark, for example? It has a huge network of embassies all over the world and it is a small country also. Obviously, that has a major effect on its industries, in particular the dairy industry. We have a thriving food industry.

We talk about the Ireland House concept. We should have one in Japan and in other countries, as we do in New York. Is this the way we should be going forward, making better use of resources and the non-governmental agencies, and working together to build up that network and to be able to compete with the big countries like Germany and France which have extensive networks?