Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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153. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the amount spent on sending Irish election observers abroad in each of the past three years; the reason his department declined the invitation from the OSCE to provide Irish election observers to the recent US election; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8982/17]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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International election monitoring missions play an important role in the promotion of democracy and human rights. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade maintains and administers a roster of observers for such missions. The aim is to ensure that Ireland is represented at an appropriate level in international election observation missions organised in the main by the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The following table sets out the costs of deploying election observers, together with the numbers of observers and elections observed, for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016.