Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Wallace for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Tánaiste, who sends his apologies. Ireland's diplomatic and consular network is at the forefront of efforts to promote our political and economic interests and values and provide important services to the Irish people and business community. At present, there are 80 embassies, consulates, and representative offices In our global diplomatic network.

Ireland is one of six EU member states that does not currently have resident missions in Iran. At the moment, the embassy of Ireland in Ankara is accredited on a non-residential basis to Iran. The ambassador of Ireland in Ankara travels regularly to Iran in support of our broad policy objectives, including the development of political relations, trade relations and supporting the needs of Irish businesses operating or hoping to operate there. Ireland is also represented in Iran by an honorary consul. Honorary consuls are an important element of the State’s global engagement and provide consular services and assistance, as well as a range of other supports to citizens and to the embassy in Ankara. Honorary consular representation is, of course, of a fundamentally different nature to diplomatic representation and I do not consider it to be a substitute for a resident diplomatic presence.

A range of factors are taken into account, as the Deputy knows, in considering our diplomatic representation overseas, including our national political, economic and trade priorities, as well as the availability of resources. The Government is, of course, conscious of the political, economic and trade factors that might warrant the opening of a resident diplomatic mission in Iran, as in a number of other countries. As the Deputy has pointed out, Iran is an important local and regional power as well as a large potential market. However, resource constraints do not allow us to have resident representation in all the locations that might objectively justify it having regard to all of those factors.

More broadly, the configuration and scale of Ireland's diplomatic network is kept under constant review. Last year, the Taoiseach announced the Government’s Global Footprint initiative to double our global impact and secure our international influence. On foot of this, work has already begun on the initial phase of the expansion of Ireland’s diplomatic network, which includes the Government decision to open new embassies in Santiago in Chile, Bogotá in Colombia, Amman in Jordan and Wellington in New Zealand, and new consulates general in Vancouver in Canada and Mumbai in India. These new offices will open later this year and in 2019.

It is important to stress, and the Deputy raised this, that the closure of the embassy in Teheran was not related to the then nuclear dispute. The Government was greatly disappointed by the US announcement that it is withdrawing from the nuclear arrangement with Iran. Ireland and our EU partners, and a very broad spectrum of international opinion, have made clear that we believe the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA, was a significant diplomatic achievement and that all parties to it should continue to implement it in full. We share many of the concerns which the US has expressed about other aspects of Iranian policy but, as the Deputy rightly pointed out, the way to address these is not to move away from one area where significant positive progress has been made, and that remains very much our view.

The EU signatories to the agreement and other parties have already held initial meetings with Iran to discuss the possibility of continuing to implement the agreement, and Ireland will fully support that objective, although the difficulties should not be underestimated.

As mentioned, the question of reopening the embassy will be kept under consideration by the Government and I can confirm that the question of the reopening of the embassy will form part of considerations in the Global Footprint 2025 initiative and will be taken fully into account in ongoing work to the 2025 deadline.

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