Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Denis Staunton for his contribution. I have read his paper. I will start with the last part, which states that none of what he says is of any use unless financial resources are available. He was critical of the decision to close the embassy in the Holy See. We also closed the embassies in Timor and Tehran. I am concerned that we may quickly forget the economic crisis experienced by this country and the obligation on a Department to take its portion of cuts, just as every other Department did, and that this is the background to the closures. To this day, it still strikes me as incongruous that we have an embassy in Rome but for some silly old formula, applied by the Vatican, one cannot use the same building for servicing the issues of the Holy See even though we have an embassy in Rome, right beside the Vatican.

One will notice, as politicians around this table, particularly at the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, more in the past than at present, that they have worked closely with the committee around the Irish Aid end of things and the poor blacks in Africa suffering from starvation and how we respond to world events, emergency aid and so on. The Irish Aid element was more prominent in the past that it is now.

With the add on of trade to responsibilities of the Department of Foreign Affairs - we are all politicians, none with a business background - none of the staff who manages this committee is a specialist in trade, does Mr. Staunton have an opinion on whether the discussion on restructuring and policy review might eliminate the trade element? One is reading in the newspapers every other day of the week reports of those on trade missions. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, is on a trade mission, the Tánaiste is also out on trade missions. Everybody is on trade missions. Is there an umbrella? Are we the umbrella? Who is handling trade? Is the trade portfolio appropriate to the work on foreign affairs? I know there is a very important link between trade activities and embassies run by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Call a spade a spade, I do not think those of us around this table focus very much on the trade element of the structure of the "Joint Committee of Foreign Affairs and Trade". What is Mr. Staunton's opinion on that?
Mr. Staunton's paper was fascinating in so far as for the first time I have discovered that those whom I hold in the highest of esteem are the diplomatic corps, having interacted with them throughout the world. When we had an embassy in Tehran, the ambassador spoke Farsi, in our embassy in Beijing, the ambassador speaks Mandarin, but they receive no incentive payments. That is absolutely disgraceful. If we are considering a policy review, I argue most strongly that the ability of our diplomatic corps to work in countries that speak Spanish, French and Asian languages is that staff go to the personal trouble of learning a language on top of their duties as professional diplomats. They then should be rewarded. It is an important stage in the development of Ireland vis-à-visthe rest of the world because it has been pointed out that the West and America are in decline. I have argued this point before. The area of economic growth is Asia, mainly led by China. Our education system must be seriously at fault. We have bilateral agreements with many countries and invariably embassy officials will tell us about the quota of 500 students who may go to Mexico and vice versa. Almost all non-English speaking countries with which we have student exchange programmes are taken up by the non-English speaking students. Ireland is abysmal in sending our quota of students to these countries. I often use as a comparison the parallel between the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the international office in Dublin City Council. It might be worth noting that Dublin City Council is twinned with Beijing. As part of the memorandum of understanding three officials from the Beijing local authority have worked in Dublin City Council for ten weeks. They have just returned home. I would hazard a guess that it will be impossible for Dublin City Council to send three local authority staff to Beijing. This is what should be done. We must do it.
I have engaged with the OSCE as a short-term election monitor and am familiar with some of the countries that we often criticise around this table. Let us take Ukraine as an example. So many of these countries that are learning democracy give their citizens a vote through their embassies overseas. I used to think simplistically that would be the solution to our engagement with the diaspora. Let me put a question because the witness suggests that nothing can happen unless extra resources are available. How do we use the resources? What resources are we to use to engage with our diaspora? What would it cost to try to facilitate the Irish in America to partake in a voting system? The paperwork is significant. The embassies are already undermanned. Would that be the best approach, or should we adopt the French system, where by a French citizen in Ireland, Ms Hélène Conway-Mouret would have engaged with the French in England and Ireland and was elected to the Senate initially and now a Minister? Is that a better way or should we be resourcing and supporting the GAA, which has a phenomenal engagement with the diaspora throughout the world? I remember being in Milwaukee which has and a major Irish musical festival. Should thaspora?e concept of working through Irish organisations abroad be encouraged as the way to look after our diaspora?
We have been debating the question of where to target resources for a long time. We keep mentioning the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China. The members of this committee will visit India sometime this year.
A decision was taken on economic grounds to close three embassies. It is vital to build up a network. Are we trying to be bigger than we actually are? Is it possible to develop in the way we desire and build a network of well resourced embassies in the present climate?