Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As was mentioned, Prime Minister Modi made a visit to Ireland last year and I had the opportunity to meet him on that occasion. I certainly did invite him to visit Ireland again and would very much like him to do so. However, I appreciate that having only visited last year, it might be some time before an Indian Prime Minister is able to visit again. He did invite me to India and asked that I bring my family with me. I would certainly like to visit India in the future but no arrangements have been made as yet. There are, of course, a number of other places that I need to visit, particularly with so many European issues on the agenda. I have plans to visit a number of European countries over the next couple of months, if I can.

In response to Deputy Burton, I agree that we should expand our consulates around the world and expand our diplomatic footprint. The Deputy mentioned that we have an embassy in Delhi but only honorary consulates in a number of other cities. One city that springs to mind, in which we could perhaps in future have a consulate, is Mumbai, one of the largest cities in the world and very much India's economic capital. I imagine it is the kind of place where an Ireland House operation involving IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, Bord Bia and a consulate would be very appropriate.

I have asked a number of Ministers to work together to develop a plan to double our global footprint over the next seven to eight years. That is not necessarily a doubling of offices, staff or budgets but it is a matter of looking at the entire suite of Irish diplomatic representation - our embassies and consulates, Bord Bia, IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, and Tourism Ireland - and also our cultural presence around the world, and thinking strategically as to how we can increase that over the next seven or eight years. This is in part a response to Brexit but even if there was no Brexit it is the kind of thing we should be doing anyway. We are a small country and we need boots and suits on the ground. Compared to other countries like Denmark and New Zealand, we are somewhat behind. If we really do want to be an island at the centre of the world, we are going to need more people out and about around the world representing us. However, these things should not be done overnight. They should be done in a planned way and scaled up to make sure we have the right people with good competence doing exactly those things.

In respect of the other matters, this was a very short, congratulatory call which probably did not go on for more than eight or nine minutes. While the issues mentioned by Deputies are of course very important, it was not possible to discuss them all in the time we had.

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