Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman of the committee, Deputy Pat Breen, for bringing the report to the Dáil and for the opportunity to debate and discuss it today. Like others I acknowledge and thank all of the committee members who have made a contribution to the report and will comment on it during this debate, including Deputies Byrne, Crowe, Mitchell, O'Sullivan and Smith.

I will make observations on the report, which I have read, and respond to some of the points raised on the content of it and to the observations of colleagues on our foreign policy and the integration of trade into it. I wish to put the report and the debate into context and quote from an excellent book, which is part of a series entitled Documents on Irish Foreign Policy published by the Royal Irish Academy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It is a superb series which publishes the archives of the Department. To date, eight or nine volumes have been published and they are released every few years.

One of the first documents in Volume 1 is entitled Message to the Free Nations of the World. It was one of the main messages from the first Dáil, published on 21 January 1919. The third paragraph states:

Internationally, Ireland is the gateway to the Atlantic; Ireland is the last outpost of Europe towards the West; Ireland is the point upon which great trade routes between East and West converge; her independence is demanded by the Freedom of the Seas; her great harbours must be open to all nations

Even at the very start of our foreign policy as we began to understand what and how we wanted to communicate to the outside world upon establishing our sovereignty, there was awareness of where we are in the world, our location and the opportunities this would create at some point for trade and communication with the outside world. The themes in it are consistent with some of the other discussions we have had. One of the earliest communications back to the Department of Foreign Affairs was from Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh, who represented Ireland at the conference in Paris in 1919. In his communication of 7 March, amid all the great responsibilities he was managing, and they were great, awesome and so demanding, he stated:

The work I have in hands is I would like to remind you of the highest importance at the moment and it cannot possibly be done to best advantage if I don't get help. It is inhuman to ask one man to carry it on all alone. I am working every day from early morning till late at night but I cannot divide myself into six parts

He goes through the costs and demands of the work, including the cost of living and communicating in Paris. The concluding line of his letter back to Dublin is, "Let me have some money as soon as you can manage it".

I do not say this for flippant reasons. In the letter he communicates the huge practical difficulty he has in doing his work, which was so important to his country, and the cost of doing it. These are the main themes on which we have been touching during this discussion. While in some way the execution and articulation is contemporary, these have been themes throughout our foreign policy since the foundation of the State. A number of particular points in the report introduced by Deputy Breen touch on this.

First, it is important that the report welcomes the restructuring that took place in the then Department of Foreign Affairs to include within it the role of trade promotion. I wish to return to comments made in this regard by Deputies Maureen Sullivan and Olivia Mitchell. The second valuable point is that the report acknowledges the feedback this restructuring has received from persons involved in industry and those who are trying to sell Irish goods and services abroad to the effect that they thought it was of help. The third point which I think is of value is that while the report establishes and notes the role of embassies, it makes particular reference to the role of consulates general, their number, location and the kind of work they do. I have had direct experience in this regard in respect of Ireland's consul general in Edinburgh and the report refers to the role of such persons in other parts of the world and the work they will do. While it is correct to highlight the work of Ireland's ambassadors and embassies and the lead role they play, the specific reference to consuls general is very welcome. The report goes on to touch on an issue referred to by both Deputies Maureen O'Sullivan and Olivia Mitchell, that is, the need to continue to emphasise the role of human rights as a vital strand in Ireland's foreign policy, as well as the need for both of these themes to coexist, as they must and can do.

That leads me to some of the points made in this debate thus far. Having read the report, three observations that I wish to emphasise struck me. The first is that it makes the point that Ireland has deepened and strengthened integration between its embassies, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and State agencies. In my work abroad I witness this regularly. I have seen it in Poland and Belgium in the past two or three weeks. However, one should not take what we have as a given. One should always be open to evaluating it to ascertain how it can be strengthened. In particular, I note that Deputy Brendan Smith made the point that the Ireland House concept was not new. He is correct in that regard. During my time in my current role I have seen how the concept has been deployed in more places and how the Government seeks to make such collaboration more successful. I saw such an example recently at the Irish Embassy in Warsaw, where all of the State agencies and the embassy were literally right beside one another, using the same facilities and meeting rooms and working together in such an integrated fashion.

The second point I wish to emphasise pertains to the work being done within the European Union, in particular. The Government must continue to be aware that as important and vital are the strong multilateral relations Ireland has with countries or, in other words, the relationships it has with countries through bodies such as the European Union, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, they must never be a substitute for strong bilateral relations with these countries. That is the reason Ireland's embassies are so important, even though I meet representatives of the other 27 member states of the European Union virtually everything third week in the different bodies of which I am a member. These relations can only reach the levels the Government seeks to have them reach for the benefit of the people of Ireland if such meetings are accompanied by continued contact between the two countries in question at ministerial level and through the embassies. This is a theme of which the Government has been aware in its foreign and European policy in recent years and it should not be lost sight of.

My final observation in response to the report is that, as the Tánaiste said, it makes reference to Ireland's opening up of new embassies and new consulates general, which is to be welcomed, as other European Union countries are closing them. However, it is necessary to put this in context. The Government should always consider the likely sources of political and economic gravity in the coming years and ask itself whether it will be well placed to represent itself and the country in the world of 20 and 30 years. It should then consider how to go about planning to do this. While progress has been made in that respect in recent years, the Government must continue to do this.

In response to some specific points made in the debate, I agree with Deputy Brendan Smith on the value of the Ireland House concept and the practical benefits it can bring. While I have touched on some of the points made by Deputy Seán Crowe in his contribution, I wish to say what I thought was of particular interest because it is the first time I have heard a member of Sinn Féin say it. He was speaking about the referendum in the United Kingdom and how important he believed it to be that the United Kingdom should remain within the European Union. What I find striking about this is that this is the European Union that constitutes all of the treaties against which Sinn Féin has campaigned in the Republic of Ireland. In other words, the Deputy is looking for the United Kingdom to remain within the European Union - as I strongly believe it should - under the auspices, for example, of the Treaty of Lisbon, the implementation of which Sinn Féin was against.

While I would love to have an opportunity to respond at another time to some of the points made by Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan because there was so much in her contribution I would like to debate, I wish to respond to one specific point. Having participated in a lot of trade promotion activity within my role, I have been struck by how nearly all of the companies represented in such activity are small to medium-sized. I can understand completely how such an image might develop, but I refer to the idea that the economy is divided into large companies that are exporting and others that are small and which do not. In my personal experience I have found that the companies that make the greatest use of such missions are actually those companies to which the Deputy refers. This point perhaps should be better articulated and more information shared in this regard. I will conclude with an example. I participated and spoke at a dinner in the Irish Embassy in London a few months ago to support Irish companies in gaining business within the United Kingdom. Virtually all of the company representatives at that dinner - approximately 150 people attended the event - were from very small Irish companies. As the Deputy noted, it would be to the Government's benefit were it to find a way of communicating this point in order that people understood the role of such missions.

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