Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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225. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if his Department has lease arrangements with co-working real estate companies; and, if so, the details of the leases, including the terms of the lease, location, price and duration. [35857/20]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department leases office space from co-working real estate companies in two locations: Cardiff, UK and Frankfurt, Germany.

The current lease agreement with Regus for the temporary Consulate General in Cardiff is on a monthly rolling basis since April 2019 and has costed €87,1000 till end October 2020.

The current lease agreement with WeWork for the temporary Consulate General in Frankfurt covers the period from July 2020 to September 2021 and costs €82,920.

Both of these locations are new Missions opened as part of the Governments, Global Ireland - Ireland's Global Footprint to 2025strategy to expand and deepen Ireland's international presence across a number of priority regions.

Office space in each location is leased for the purposes of providing a temporary location for each Mission while work on securing a permanent location is undertaken.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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226. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if his Department leases additional office space that is outside its departmental building and the estates section of the OPW; and, if so, the details of the lease including the terms of the lease, location, price and duration. [35875/20]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Ireland’s diplomatic and consular Missions are currently located in a total of 80 leased and 12 State-owned office premises. The terms and conditions of the 80 leases vary considerably in nature and detail depending on location and local law. In most instances, rents are paid monthly or quarterly although in some cases they are paid annually in advance. Many of our Mission premises also accommodate officials of other Government Departments and/or State Agencies that may share the rent and other costs.

Ireland’s diplomatic and consular Missions play a crucially important role in the achievement of our foreign policy and economic objectives. Since 2018, under the 'Global Ireland 2025' initiative, new Missions have been opened in Amman, Bogotá, Monrovia, Santiago de Chile and Wellington and new Consulates-General in Cardiff, Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Vancouver. New Missions are also planned for Kyiv, Manila and Rabat; and the Programme for Government also provides for the opening of a Consulate-General in the north of England and for the further strengthening of the diplomatic and State Agency network across the European Union and its neighbourhood.

The Global Ireland 2025 initiative will ensure that Ireland remains well placed to build the alliances necessary to advance our interests in the EU, while also further deepening our many other important relationships, most notably with the UK post-Brexit and with the US under President-elect Biden.

The amounts shown, by location, in the table below were charged to the office rental subheads of Votes 27 – Foreign Affairs and 28 – International Cooperation in 2019 and 2020 to-date.