Professor Ben Tonra:

It is impossible for one individual or two individuals to cover that kind of territory. We have to think smarter. We can use, for example, honorary consuls and secondments or short-term contracts to increase the size of our missions. We can use social media and the idea of a virtual embassy to do much more with less. Expansion does not have to mean building consulates and staffing them with full-time diplomats. There is a danger here, though, in that we do not want Irish diplomacy to be run by amateurs. However, as long as we have the network well-constructed, with clear lines of responsibility, we can be more creative and imaginative in terms of how we staff our missions and increase their overall number. We could use the European External Action Service, EEAS, as a platform on which to build a network overseas. We could open an office in an EEAS building somewhere in the first instance, and if it takes off, we could open a separate office or embassy. It is about being smarter, thinking more imaginatively and taking advantage of technology and other opportunities we have not had the time or the chance to develop yet.