Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to share my time with the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Naughten.

The budget for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will increase by €23 million in 2018, which will comprise a €21 million rise in current expenditure and a €2 million increase in capital expenditure. I will address where that increase in funding will go as well as some broader priorities the Government has focused on, in particular regarding Brexit..

As the Minister responsible for ensuring cross-Government co-ordination of our necessary response, Brexit is my first priority and I will ensure continued good management of the Article 50 process and the protection of the Good Friday Agreement. The measures announced by the Government are comprehensive and include a rainy day fund which will have an initial €1.5 billion allocation from the Strategic Investment Fund and subsequent annual contributions of €500 million commencing in 2019. That will place us in a strong position to mitigate risks arising from Brexit. We have also budgeted for a significant increase of €4.3 billion in capital expenditure over the next four years. That is another important decision in terms of allowing us to plan infrastructure projects which best support the economic priorities the Government has outlined.

To aid businesses, we have announced a €300 million Brexit loan scheme for all SMEs and large firms with fewer than 500 employees and an additional €25 million Brexit scheme for the agrifood sector. Total Brexit response measures by the Department of agriculture will amount to more than €50 million in 2018. We are also doubling the number of Brexit-related posts across our economic agencies. The Tánaiste, Deputy Fitzgerald, has announced the detail of that regarding key agencies such as the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland. Bord Bia and Bord Iascaigh Mhara are also hugely relevant in that regard.

In my Department, we have already taken steps to augment our Brexit teams at departmental headquarters in Dublin and in major European capitals such as Brussels, Berlin, Paris and London. The budget puts those measures on a sustainable footing and allows us to further augment our Brexit team as the process continues. We also want to provide increased options and opportunities for Irish companies looking to diversify and trade in new markets overseas.

The Taoiseach has set an ambitious target for Ireland's engagement around the world by 2025 and the first initiatives in that respect will be the opening of new embassies and consulates which will allow us to protect our interests, extend our influence and position ourselves for growth opportunities in new and existing markets. I informed the Government at Cabinet this week of our intention to open two new embassies in Colombia and Chile. Latin America is a region where we are currently dramatically under-represented as we only have three embassies in a region comprising 33 countries and 645 million people. This is about exploiting untapped markets.

The new embassy in Bogota will assist in promoting trade and investment. Colombia is a country of almost 50 million people which has doubled its per capitaincome over the past decade. Since it signed a free trade agreement with the EU in 2012, our goods trade with it has almost tripled. Several Irish companies are active there and it is a potentially important education market. Our new embassy will also underpin Ireland's support for the peace process in Colombia, including the efforts of Eamon Gilmore, who is the EU special envoy for that process and has done an extraordinarily effective job in recent months.

Chile is a high-income country, a member of several trading blocs and among the most competitive economies in Latin America. It is a promising emerging market for Irish companies in several sectors, including technology, higher education, telecommunications equipment, renewable energy and aquaculture. The opening of a new embassy in Santiago reflects the growth in the bilateral relationship and our like-minded position on many bilateral issues. Ireland also has very close historical connections with Colombia and Chile.

A new consulate is to be opened in Vancouver in western Canada. Much of the economic growth and many of our citizens in Canada are in the west of the country and it is no longer feasible to tend to that growing relationship via a relatively small embassy 2,700 miles away in Ottawa, which gives one an idea of the size of Canada. As Members know, Canada is a key trading partner for us, with over 600 Irish companies supporting 25,000 jobs benefitting from Ireland-Canada trade. There is significant potential for further growth due to the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, coming into effect last month.

I further informed the Government of our plans to open an embassy in Amman, Jordan, which is a highly strategic location in terms of our work and investment in the Middle East.

This mission will allow us to build on our political partnership with Jordan, work closely with our Defence Forces and facilitate oversight of our humanitarian assistance, which amounted to €25 million in the region last year. Our political and humanitarian investment in the Middle East is enormous, and securing progress on the Middle East peace process is a big political priority for me, underpinned by the presence of our peacekeepers in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. I am also asking officials in my Department to examine the case for reopening our embassy in Iran, including an assessment of the opportunities for Irish companies to do business in the country and the potential support a resident embassy could offer. I am conscious that this is somewhat controversial from a political perspective, but the vast majority of EU countries have embassies in Iran, as we did in the past, and there are clear opportunities there for us to explore.

As for Asia, we are also in a position to announce the opening of a new consulate in Mumbai, India. India is another strategic partner. Last year we exported almost €3 billion in goods and services there, while IDA-client investment from India accounts for 2,600 jobs here. Mumbai is the commercial capital, and the new consulate will allow the establishment of an Ireland House and facilitate engagement by the State agencies in the western region of India. It will also assist with a growing consular workload there. In Japan, we are providing funding to begin work next year on a new state-of-the-art Ireland House in Tokyo. Japan is already our largest trading partner in Asia for services and is also a growing market for food exports. Our exports last year were valued at €7.7 billion, and Japanese investment in Ireland supports 4,000 jobs. Brexit opens the prospect of further investment, as does the new EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement. A new Ireland House will allow my Department and our State agencies to take greater advantage of these opportunities.

In Europe, we have benefited greatly from the Government's decision to maintain an embassy in every EU member state, even during the financial crisis. The wisdom of this decision has been plain to see since the UK's Brexit vote. I now want us to go further and to look at expanding our diplomatic and economic footprint across the European Union, with a particular focus on opportunities in commercial hubs in large EU member states. This is an additional body of work or assessment I will be asking my officials and my Department to take forward in the coming period. We must ask ourselves questions such as, for example, whether we need a presence in Munich. I think we do. We are conscious too of the developing discussion around the future of Europe and we will allocate resources to ensure the widest possible participation in this discussion. I fully share the Taoiseach's vision of making Ireland "an island at the centre of the world". It is vital we diversify and expand our horizons as we plan, unfortunately, for an EU without the UK. We will return to Cabinet with additional proposals in this respect in the coming months.

We have started a new journey now regarding overseas development aid, ODA. For the first time since 2012, we will spend more than €500 million on the Irish aid programme. We have increased the ODA budget by €26 million in this budget but we need to do a lot more. Over the next six months or so we will be putting a new plan in place to take to Government with a view to putting a ten-year plan in place to get Ireland where we promised we would be in terms of ODA.

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