John Perry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 110: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if any review has been undertaken with regard to use of the diplomatic bag; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26897/05]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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A thorough review of departmental practice with regard to the use of the diplomatic bag for the transmission of correspondence to officers serving abroad was carried out by officials in my Department in late 2004 and early 2005. This included consideration of the practices in other countries. The review arose from the distribution on one occasion of generic election material to a number of overseas officers of the Department. Under the terms of the Electoral Acts, and subject to registration in the appropriate manner, civil servants serving at Irish diplomatic and consular missions overseas, together with qualifying members of their families resident with them, are entitled to cast their ballots by post.

It is the Department's practice to allow officers serving abroad and members of their families residing with them to use the diplomatic bag facility to send and receive items of private correspondence. At election time, it has also been the practice to forward to officers abroad, who are registered voters, personally addressed election literature received in the Department. Concern was expressed in May 2004, prior to the local and European elections, about the transmission of certain generic election material in the diplomatic bag which was not specifically addressed to individuals. Neither the then Minister, his private office, nor any senior official were aware of the request to circulate this material. In the light of the understandable concerns arising from this, the then Minister informed the Dáil that the Department's arrangements now needed to be put on a more structured basis and that a review would be conducted for that purpose. The Minister assured the Dáil that the new arrangements would ensure that the process was fully transparent and would be known to interested parties at election time.

Arising from the review, the Department has now drawn up a set of draft procedures to govern the distribution of election material through the diplomatic bag and to ensure that there is no repetition of the type of transmission mentioned above. These would require political parties that wished to send election material to registered postal voters in embassies or consulates to make specific arrangements for the delivery of such literature in separate individually addressed envelopes to a named official in the Department's registry. I will ensure that the new structured arrangements are made known to all concerned well in advance of the next election.