Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. It is clear from the reply that this commitment was one of the Taoiseach's soft August stories designed to give the appearance of activity without doing anything concrete.

Since before the Brexit referendum, Fianna Fáil has been calling for a significant increase in overseas staff, both to overseas missions and to the enterprise agencies, including IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, Bord Bia and Fáilte Ireland. I have been of the view that we simply do not have enough staff on the ground. It is extraordinary that an announcement of this kind was made, for example, when a number of years ago the Embassy in Tehran was closed, along with that in the Vatican and others.

It seems from the Taoiseach's reply that his announcement was not based on any policy agreed by Cabinet. It was not based on any specific numbers or costs, or recruitment schedules or anything like that. It was essentially blurted out in Canada without any homework at all being done. What the Taoiseach seems to be indicating now is the work has now begun well after the announcement.

I called last year for a detailed staffing audit and future plan. Has that audit been undertaken by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and, indeed, by the Taoiseach's own Department because I asked separately for a complete review of the Department of the Taoiseach and its needs in relation to Brexit? The Taoiseach will be aware that Deputy Donnelly, who has done a lot of good work on this, discovered through a series of probing parliamentary questions that most of the agencies had not even filled the additional staff allocations they had received in respect of Brexit and the staff had not been hired. It is that disconnect between the reality of what is happening in the here and now and the grandiose announcements that we will be doubling our global footprint some time in the distant future.

We need to get with delivery and executing what we have agreed in the immediate and short terms. That would give the people some confidence that propagandistic announcements that are made from time to time will be realised. People are becoming cynical and sceptical about statements that in five years' time this will happen and in six years' time that will happen. We had all of that in terms of universal health insurance and other issues. Has the Taoiseach finished the review of the Department of the Taoiseach and what has he decided as a result of that particular review?

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