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

I was very disappointed to have to cancel my plan to visit the mission in Mali and attend the EU-Africa summit in Côte d'Ivoire. I certainly would like to visit Africa but there are only so many days in the year and, obviously, I have responsibilities in the Oireachtas, Government Buildings, in all parts of Ireland and in Europe. They must take precedence over intercontinental travel. I am not sure if it will be possible to pay a visit to Africa next year.

The new missions to be established in 2018 are an embassy in New Zealand, embassies in Bogotá in Colombia and Santiago de Chile, a new Ireland House in Mumbai and a new consulate in Vancouver to cover western Canada. By March 2018, in advance of St. Patrick's Day, we should be able to indicate where the new missions for 2019 will be located. I will take into consideration Deputy Micheál Martin's suggestion of Tehran, the capital of Iran, which is an important economic and political power in that region. However, it is not just about new missions. We are also beefing up existing missions, which is of equal importance because many of our missions consist of just one person or two people.

I do not have any new information on the US envoy to Northern Ireland. Our priority is the appointment of an ambassador to Ireland. I met the acting ambassador in the last couple of weeks to discuss a number of issues, including tax policy and undocumented Irish citizens in the United States. Of course, I mentioned President Trump's incorrect assertion that we are reducing our corporation profit tax to 8%. We are not. There has been an increase in the number of arrests of undocumented Irish citizens living in the US, but I am informed by the US authorities that many or most of them have convictions, criminal convictions in many cases, not related to immigration. I have appointed Deputy Deasy to work specifically on the undocumented Irish. He has been travelling back and forth to Washington in the past couple of months to see if we can put something together that would assist our citizens in the US.

I do not have any plans to visit Libya.

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