Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, all the best in his new brief and congratulate him on his appointment to the role. I am sure he will continue the excellent work done previously by his constituency colleague, Deputy McEntee. The Minister of State and I have discussed matters pertaining to Europe and, indeed, Brexit, many times in recent years in the media and various other forums. As he well knows and has seen in recent months, Ireland holds a great deal of influence around the world, particularly in the EU. In recent years, two Irish people have held the vital role of Secretary General of the European Commission. Ms Emily O'Reilly is the current European Ombudsman, while Ms Emer Cooke is head of the European Medicines Agency.

However, all is not well. These achievements do not hide the fact that officials expect a significant reduction in the number of Irish officials working in the EU institutions in the coming years as many high-ranking officials are nearing retirement age. There was a surge of talented Irish people taking up roles in the European institutions in the 1970s and 1980s, but our representation there has not been consistently replenished. Like our colleagues in Denmark, we are well below the replacement level, which will reduce Ireland's influence. Ireland has an incredibly strong diplomatic presence around the world. We must not allow that to fall by the wayside within the EU which is so close to home. Since 2015, only five Irish citizens have entered the EU Concours programme, while 150 have completed a blue book traineeship.

The programme for Government commits to developing a strategy to increase Ireland's presence in the senior ranks of the EU institutions. The best way to do that is to encourage and facilitate young Irish people who apply for internships or entry-level positions. It is vital that a plan be published to support and promote this strategy as soon as possible. Another way of maintaining our influence would be to second civil servants to EU institutions where needed and appropriate. On average, 24 secondments take place annually to the EU. The scheme is vital in building up expertise in the Civil Service and should be expanded.

There is much more that can be done. To put it bluntly, Ireland struggles in the context of foreign languages. While most of the measures that would address this problem are outside the remit of the Minister of State, I hope he will put pressure on the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, to roll out an increased focus on European languages at primary level.

Beyond that, we need to be more creative. On the day of his funeral, perhaps we could take a page out of Jack Charlton's book. How many Irish citizens are living in Brussels, may have grown up there and are keen to pursue a career in the EU institutions? Ireland is far more cosmopolitan now than it was when we joined the EEC. Many young Irish graduates are multilingual as their parents grew up outside Ireland.

Unfortunately, there is an issue that relates to our native language. Dozens of positions for Irish lawyer linguists are not being filled. There are extremely lucrative careers for Gaeilgeoirs in the EU which could provide Ireland with great influence. How can we make the most of that opportunity?

Moving beyond the issue of language, the Concours is an unwieldy and difficult examination process that requires dedicated supports to be provided to candidates by the State. In addition to the extremely important third level recruitment campaigns in which the Minister of State will doubtless take part - I have taken part in them in a private capacity - there is far more that needs to be done at the stage after traineeships. Irish candidates for the Concours need real support in the process. We need to encourage Irish people who are already living in Brussels to apply for these positions. It may be possible to engage with Irish people who have recently retired from the EU institutions with a view to them providing a mentoring service.

In the context of Brexit, we have seen European solidarity in its finest form. The solidarity with Ireland shown by our European partners and the EU institutions during the Brexit process is the result of many years of strong Irish influence on and within the EU. It is, therefore, vital that we address this glaring problem. We need a revamp and an imaginative strategy to address this issue because, simply, time will not wait for us.

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