Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I will happily try to jump around those questions and answer them all.

I will deal with the embassies first. I think I am right in saying that since the Global Ireland strategy began a few years ago, we have opened about 15 new embassies and consulates. That is quite significant. I refer to places such as Santiago in Chile, Bogotá in Colombia and Vancouver. We have opened an embassy for the first time in New Zealand, in Wellington, and we have opened multiple new consulates across the US and one in Vancouver, western Canada. We have opened new consulates across the EU as well. We will open in Lyon this year. Last year, we opened in Frankfurt as well as in north Africa, in Morocco, and east of the European Union, in Kyiv. The way this works is that we make decisions 12 months before we are likely to action them. Therefore, when the Chairman says he does not see Perth on the list, that is because it is being considered as part of a package which is not yet signed off on but which I will bring to the Government in the coming weeks as suggestions we are making for new representations that should progress next year. This year we are progressing Dakar, Toronto, Miami and Lyon for sure. One or two may be added to that list if we can move quickly on them. I am anxious to do something in the western Balkans. We have no diplomatic footprint there at all. There are other countries that have large populations and are quite influential in their regions where we need a presence. Obviously, I do not want to start announcing names now without bringing them to the Government first, but that is how this works. We have made a decision on Tehran. We have, effectively, the equivalent of an ambassador in Iran at the moment. We have a partnership with Germany. Basically, we asked Germany if it would partner with us before we came onto the Security Council because we knew we would be taking on the important brief of the facilitator for the joint comprehensive plan of action, JCPOA, or the Iranian nuclear dear. UN Resolution 2231 is the basis for that deal. We needed a presence on the ground there, so I approached the German foreign minister, with whom I had a very good relationship. Germany has facilitated us to have a team in its quite large embassy in Tehran, so we already have a presence there and it is proving very useful, but we are committed to opening a full embassy. What I said when I was last in Tehran is that we would try to do that in the first quarter of next year. I hope we will be able to deliver on that timeline. Obviously, it is not straightforward getting a building in somewhere such as Tehran, but that is what we plan to do. It is another example of the need to have a diplomatic footprint in a country in respect of which, from a policy perspective, we probably have differences of opinion and perspective on many things. It is important that, as an international partner, we can speak to people, understand different perspectives and try to make useful interventions. There is a specific role on the Security Council, which we are focused on now. The JCPOA should have been concluded by now along with the negotiations in Vienna. We continue to work as best we can to try to encourage a conclusion. The world could do with a good news story now. Getting the JCPOA, or Iranian nuclear deal, back in place to provide guarantees for the world that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon and removing the sanctions, which could allow the Iranian economy to grow on the back of that commitment, would be a good news story for the region and for the world more generally. As I said, given what is happening in Ukraine, Yemen and other such places, we could do with a positive headline.

If it is okay, I will ask my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, to deal with the American Irish Historical Society. I know a bit about it but am told he knows more, so I will let him deal with that. It is a diaspora issue. It is a complex enough issue for us to deal with, but I got a reasonable brief on it in New York this week. I understand that the Minister of State is very much on top of that issue so I will leave that question to him.

As for North-South co-operation and so on, last year we increased the reconciliation fund by €1 million and this year we are maintaining it. Given the tension and polarisation of politics around some of the Brexit issues, the Northern Ireland protocol issues and so on, we really must invest in cross-Border relationships. The Department of the Taoiseach is doing that through the shared island fund; we do it through the reconciliation fund and through supporting organisations such as Co-operation Ireland, which is a great organisation, and the International Fund for Ireland. One of the reasons we are increasing our contribution to the IFI is to encourage others to do the same. Multiple governments, in particular our Government, the UK Government and that in Washington, commit to the IFI. It is important we lead by example in that regard. It is a hugely valuable fund in how it is spent. The IFI can do things that the Governments and Government agencies sometimes cannot do. It can take more risk. It can reach out to communities that state agencies and governments may find hard to reach. That is very important in reaching out to some of the more marginalised communities that are impacted by tension, violence and paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland. I was exposed to a fantastic IFI-funded project two weeks ago, when I was in Belfast. It was a reminder of why we are spending money there.

As for the Security Council, yes, there is an increased spend because we have a team in New York. I better get this right because I am relying on memory, but it comprises about 50 people, or perhaps just under 50. The number 47 springs to mind, but it comprises between 45 and 50 people, local staff as well as a really experienced people. It is a mixed team of different levels of experience. May I say for the record something I do not get a chance to say often? Our team on the Security Council is doing a phenomenal job for Ireland in respect of our reputation, our standing and the integration and partnerships we create and build on the files the team is working on. We have taken on a huge amount of work for a small country on the Security Council, and the team is flat out the whole time. It is led by Geraldine Byrne Nason, who does an incredible job there, but there are many other people on that team who do not often get recognition here at home. They are setting a benchmark for how small countries should contribute to global debates on the Security Council in a way that is very impressive. That is money well spent. The budget for that was put in place last year and is now just being sustained. That is why Members do not see an increase in salaries on last year. They would have seen that increase when we got onto the Security Council at the start.

I had hoped someone would give me a note on women in roles of responsibility because I know we are doing well on our targets but I just was not sure what the figures were. As a percentage of heads of mission, the number of women will rise to 46% from 36%, so we are close to half our heads of mission now being women. Some people in this room might remember the Department of Foreign Affairs back in the 1970s, when that number would have been unheard of.

In fact, there was a time when there were no women heads of mission at all, and now almost half of them are women. Furthermore, a total of 50% of the ambassadors appointed this year as heads of mission were women. That is a significant step in the right direction, and not before time. We talk all the time on the Security Council and elsewhere about women's peace and security, the need for female participation and empowerment and so on, and we would not have much credibility if we did not try to apply that to our decision-making. In 2022, the target for women in senior roles, that is, principal officer and above, is 41%. We are again trying to move towards the 50% figure, which is important. The former Secretary General, who has received some criticism from this committee in respect of one incident, personally drove this issue. Niall Burgess's contribution to trying to move more women into senior positions of responsibility within the Department was significant, as was his contribution to appointing heads of mission and making recommendations to me. It is important to say that because it is true. That work continues under the current leadership.

On passports, I might outline some statistics. There are currently 770 staff in the Passport Office, including 130 new staff who joined during January and February. More than 300 staff have, therefore, been added to the passport service since last summer. A further 21 staff are due to start in the coming days. Turnaround times are important in light of the volume of applications being dealt with at the moment. For simple adult renewals, the target turnaround time is ten working days, but 45% of those renewals are processed within 48 hours. I get many questions about passports and many requests. Siobhán, who is sitting next to me during this meeting, is a living saint in terms of dealing with the volume of requests she deals with daily. The vast majority of passports in the system come through in a pretty smooth and efficient way. Of the close to 160,000 passports issued in February, almost half of the adult renewals were processed in less than two days. Those numbers speak loudly for the efforts that are being put in place.

For complex or child online renewals, it can take up to 15 working days but is often done more quickly than that, while it can take up to 35 working days for first-time applicants on Passport Online, an issue many of my colleagues have raised with me. First-time applications have been taking a long time. They require additional paperwork, which often delays the process. About half of the first-time applications that are stuck in the system or go beyond the 35 days – the target was up to 40 days until a week ago - relate to the fact we are awaiting documentation. There is a challenge for us to improve our communications in respect of the initial application process in order that there will be far fewer problem applications because the applicant has not provided the full suite of information, documentation or whatever. We are working on the target of 35 days and I understand that the intention is to reduce it further. We have knocked five days off it in the past two weeks, so that is a start.

There is also An Post's so-called Passport Express service. I am really looking forward to the day when, in a committee such as this, I can say it is no longer called that name but rather something else, given it is an eight-week process. It is not an express process; it is a much slower process than that of online applications. I recall having this conversation when I was in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. People told me there was no way farmers would be able to apply entirely online for their payments, given there were people who did not know how to use to a computer or who would not have access to broadband and so on. The Department just switched, insisting that everybody had to apply online and, if they could not do it at home, they had to get someone, whether a farm adviser or whoever, to do it for them. We have to move into that space with passports. We have to get this system online, and for people who cannot do it at home, or who do not have the broadband or computer skills to do it, we have to have agents throughout the country who can help them do it. That will make the system more secure and more efficient in terms of corrections, dealing with emergency cases and so on.

I acknowledge there is concern over the issue of foreign birth registration. Where a child is born abroad to Irish parents and is entitled to an Irish passport, it is taking time to turn that around. That does not mean that if there is an urgent case that needs to be deal with, we are not dealing with it expeditiously. There are thousands of cases that have been processed quickly through the system because a child needs to travel or needs a passport for whatever reason. That facility is still there, but we had to prioritise during Covid. In the case of many people who were living abroad, while getting an Irish passport for their child was important, it was not necessarily time sensitive. As a result, we had to prioritise other areas in regard to delivery and now we have to catch up on that. The reason for the 50% target figure for this year probably relates to the timeline estimate of approximately two years, and one year for 50%. I assume that is the case but I stand open to correction.

There are currently 33,000 applications for which documentation has been received and which are awaiting processing. Nevertheless, given we are processing about 160,000 passports a month, the high figure is something we can get on top of when we get greater and faster throughput in regard to foreign birth registration. Foreign birth registration requires much more paperwork and verification to ensure we do not contribute to child abduction, fraud and so on. I have spent a bit of time in the Passport Office and talked to the fraud squad there. We have very good systems that are used to detect fraud through facial recognition and a range of other technologies. It is a pretty regular occurrence that someone tries to get an Irish passport inappropriately. Deputy Brady asked about how we are dealing with cybersecurity and fraud issues. Whether it is a first-time passport for a child in Ireland, which has a 35-day turnaround time and requires additional forms to be filled in and so on, or whether it is a foreign birth registration, there is a reason the Irish passport is the fifth most trusted passport on the planet. It is why we can get into 190-something countries without a visa. Countries trust our verification systems and I am not going to allow that to change. We cannot simply just shovel out passports without the proper checks and verifications.

I am not saying anyone is suggesting we should do that, but we are putting in place, and spending a lot of money on, a new IT system as the foundation for our passport system in the context of security, efficiency, delivery and so on. That will be in place for next year and it will allow us to make decisions such as those relating to, potentially, using other State-owned offices throughout the country to allow people to come in and apply for passports and so on, which will be very helpful. For now, the IT system does not allow us to do that. Earlier in the Covid pandemic, our passport staff were not able work from home securely because we had to have a closed system in the passport offices where the systems were working. I ask Deputies to take that on board in the context of the challenges we have had through Covid and some of the hangover problems, particularly relating to foreign birth registration, that come from that.

As a benchmark in regard to turnaround times for passports, Ireland’s system fares very well. I often compare us with the UK, our closest neighbour, which also has a very globalised view of the world and has many people it needs to facilitate in travelling and so on. We benchmark very well against the UK. In terms of adult renewals, we are quicker than it; while in regard to complex and child online renewals, we are very similar. The UK is a bit quicker than us on first-time applications but we are reducing the turnaround times all the time.

That is just to give some reassurance on some of those things. Deputy Stanton might be interested to know that we are looking to move to a new office in Cork, although we have to find one first. While the offices in Cork work well, there are space issues and constraints and we are actively looking at options for moving to a more modern facility. However, that is not going to happen quickly and we have to manage leases and so on. I think that answers all the questions.