Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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274. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the efforts he has made to date to increase the number of Irish diplomatic staff in the United States since the formation of the Government, including the total number of new staff added to diplomatic missions by location and costs associated with increased number of missions and diplomatic staff. [23770/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Maintaining and strengthening bilateral relations with the US is a top priority for this Government. Ireland has nine missions in its diplomatic network in the US, including our Embassy in Washington DC and eight Consulates General. This network of US diplomatic missions has been expanded under the Global Ireland Strategy, with the opening new Consulates General in Los Angeles and Miami, to complement the established network of Consulates General in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, New York and San Francisco. The diplomatic network works in a highly collaborative way with Irish state agencies as one Team Ireland. The combined total of staff working in our diplomatic missions together with state agency staff is more than 200 individuals working on behalf of Ireland, this represents a significant increase over the past five years.

The number of diplomatic staff in missions across the United States has increased since the formation of the Government earlier this year. An additional officer at First Secretary level was posted to the Consulate General of Ireland, San Francisco in January and plans to post an additional officer at Third Secretary level to the Embassy of Ireland, Washington DC are underway. In addition, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science have posted a diplomatic officer at Assistant Principal Officer level to the Consulate General of Ireland, San Francisco. They intend to also post an officer at Assistant Principal Officer level to the Consulate General of Ireland, Boston in 2025.

In addition to salary, diplomatic officers posted abroad receive foreign service allowances with rent reimbursement. These allowances aim to offset the additional costs that arise for officers who are required the serve the state abroad. The Department will continue to assess staffing requirements across the mission network.