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

No studies or analyses have been commissioned that I am aware of but I will certainly give the Deputy's suggestion some consideration. It might be a useful exercise.

Creative Ireland and the UN Security Council campaigns are not run out of my Department or funded by it. With regard to the UN Security Council campaign more broadly, it obviously has different aspects. There is traditional lobbying at diplomatic and political levels. I used the Asia–Europe summit on Friday in Brussels as an opportunity to do that. I met bilaterally, in a formal context, the President of Mongolia and the Prime Minister of Norway. I also met the Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan and the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. I obviously had many other interactions on Thursday evening and Friday with many government representatives and world leaders. I used the occasion as an opportunity to make our case and pitch for a seat on the UN Security Council. Should I have the opportunity to continue in office between now and the election in 2020, that will be a big part of the work I do as Taoiseach. Obviously it is happening all the time at diplomatic level. Ministers are incorporating this work into their regular bilateral meetings.

Beyond diplomatic and political lobbying, there is, of course, what we actually do as a country, including the stance we take in the United Nations and the position we take on important issues. As part of the budget last week, there was a very large increase in commitment to overseas development assistance. I often hear political parties in this Chamber demanding that we increase our contribution to overseas development aid by a certain amount. We exceeded any figure produced by any party in our commitment. That now allows us to start moving up the scale again in terms of the proportion of our national income that is committed to overseas development aid. We had been at about 0.5% at one stage but the figure fell to about 0.3%. We are now going to start increasing the proportion again, however. We have an ongoing commitment to peacekeeping. We are increasing our level of participation in the mission in Lebanon, as the Deputy knows, taking the place of the Finns and Estonians, who are not continuing any more. It is important to have a public-awareness aspect to the campaign informing the public about what the Government is doing and how its money is being spent, particularly when it relates to overseas development aid, peacekeeping and our work in the United Nations. In addition, the Global Ireland 2025 initiative, to which I am very committed, is expanding our diplomatic presence around the world. New embassies are being set up and we are expanding significantly the remit and operations of agencies such as IDA Ireland, Tourism Ireland, Bord Bia and InterTrade Ireland. The Deputies will have seen in the budget a real, substantial commitment to all of those things. This is a new approach to foreign policy that is bursting with substance, whether in respect of Global Ireland 2025 or our UN Security Council campaign.

With regard to gov.ie, I am not fully up to date on how the project is going. The plan is that gov.iewill become the portal for access to all Departments and services. To be honest, I am not quite sure how rapidly it is developing. I believe it is run out of the Office of Government Procurement. I am afraid I do not know the position on the health portal yet but I will certainly find out and advise the Deputy by correspondence.

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