Derek McDowell (Labour)

I assumed that was the answer but we should examine this issue. It might arise from international agreements and we are unlikely to change this practice unilaterally, but we should at least ask about it. Many Irish people would be surprised to know that the representatives of so many organisations they have never heard of are walking the streets with all these immunities.

This Bill gives me the opportunity to raise the status of our embassies in Africa, particularly our heads of mission. We have a number of embassies in Africa, in countries such as Ethiopia, that do a lot of good work and administer significant budgets but which are headed by chargés d'affaires. This has been going on for a number of years and should be resolved. The political consensus to address this exists, although I do not know what mechanisms in the Department are stopping the Minister of State from doing it.

I visited Ethiopia as part of an all-party delegation under the able leadership of Senator Henry. The amount of work the embassy does is striking. It administers an annual budget through Ireland Aid of €35 million and was dealing with issues relating to the EU Presidency, which we held at the time, which involved co-ordinating the main donors in Ethiopia, of which we are one.

It is not difficult to think of other European countries, for example, Sweden, Finland and Austria, with which we have no bilateral issues and in which our resident embassy administers virtually no budget and is headed up by an ambassador. In Africa, however, where titles matter, our embassies are headed up by chargés d'affaires, notwithstanding the work they do. Given that addressing this matter would have no particular financial implications, it should be resolved sooner rather than later.

My principal purpose today was to ask a few questions and puncture the notion that diplomatic immunity is great and wonderful. Perhaps we should consider confining the privileges we extend to diplomats and consular staff to those required to allow them to do their work and withdraw those that serve no other purpose than to make diplomats' lives more comfortable. This should apply, in particular, to the embassies of friendly countries, including European Union member states.