Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to pay tribute to our honorary consuls. The committee has used the services of our honorary consuls on a number of occasions when we do not have a resident ambassador. I am talking about people such as Mr. Ramsey Khoury in Jordan, Mr. John Kane in Texas and the honorary consul in Tehran, Mr. Feizollahi, whom I met last week. These people do a wonderful job on behalf of our country and we should pay tribute to them. It is not a paid job and they do it for Ireland.

Yesterday we met Mr. Brian O'Dwyer from the Emerald Isle Immigration Center in New York and he was very thankful for the funding provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

I thank the officials in the passport office for the work they do. The new appointment system in that office is working extremely well. None of us have the level of problems we had with the passport office in the past. There will always be emergencies, and in those cases the officials in the passport office do their very best to assist those affected. The head of the Passport Office, Mr. Joseph Nugent, will appear before the committee on Wednesday, 29 January. We can take the opportunity to ask him about what was discussed today.

I thank the Tánaiste and I ask the Secretary General to thank his officials in the passport office for the great work they do; it is a very good system.

We move to programme C, which is reconciliation and co-operation on this island. I call the Tánaiste.