Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

The Minister has 1,500 or 1,600 staff in the Department of Foreign Affairs and he should reappraise how they are allocated. In view of the connections and the volume of trade between the two countries, the staff in the US should be strengthened.

I acknowledge this point is not directly related, but with the new regime we should push to deal with the difficulty of the undocumented Irish. There is a window of opportunity to do that, particularly based on the percentage and breakdown of the vote for President-elect Obama. He got a great number of votes from members of the Hispanic community. Perhaps more compassion would be shown on this issue and we could benefit from that.

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