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Joint Committee on European Union Affairs debate -
Tuesday, 10 Dec 2013

Review of Foreign Policy: Discussion with Minister of State

In the remaining 30 minutes of the meeting I want to start our discussion on the review of foreign policy and external relations. Submissions are required to be made by 4 February so we will be returning to the subject. I ask the Minister of State to start the discussions.

I welcome the opportunity to address the committee on the review of foreign policy and external relations, which we are undertaking in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The purpose of the review, which was launched by the Tánaiste on 8 October, is to provide an updated statement of Ireland's foreign policy and external relations, and to identify a series of recommendations for its conduct. As the Tánaiste said when launching the review, Ireland's foreign policy and external relations are fundamental aspects of Government. They represent the means by which we promote our values and pursue our interests abroad. Through them, we pursue Ireland's economic prosperity, and promote peace and security, both at home and in the wider world. Our foreign policy is also a statement of who we are as a people and how we wish ourselves to be seen by the outside world. Through my work as Minister of State with responsibility for European Affairs, I am aware on a daily basis of the central importance of these facts.

Following our successful EU Presidency in the first half of this year, the chairmanship of the OSCE in 2012, and our election to the UN Human Rights Council, we have an opportunity to reflect on the future direction of our foreign policy, the values and interests we seeks to promote through it, and how it contributes to achieving Government objectives. I wish to reflect on the trio of objectives I mentioned: the very successful European Union Presidency; chairmanship of the OSCE in 2012; and Ireland's election to the UN Human Rights Council. With everything else that was going on in the public and Government sphere at the moment, it is a real tribute to everybody who works in our foreign policy sphere and representing our country. I am happy to say that as somebody who only came into this role after all those achievements were in place, but it adds to the reason for saying it. A gigantic amount of work was very well done by all of our colleagues, diplomats and officials, who represent our country on a daily basis, not to mention the work by our Ministers, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. With that in mind this is a perfect point to take a step back and think where we want to go to from here.

The vital work of restoring our international reputation and promoting our economic recovery are priorities for the Government. The international leadership roles we have undertaken as a country have done much to achieve this goal, as has the building of political relationships with European and other partners, through regular participation by Ministers at Council meetings in Brussels, and through trade missions and visits abroad.

In our last meeting, I emphasised the importance of taking every opportunity to ensure that Irish positions are understood at political level and of keeping up to date on the developing priorities and challenges for our partners. Our foreign policy is central to both of those goals. This has been particularly important during the EU Presidency and the important negotiations in Europe on banking and fiscal issues. Political contact at the highest levels has been central to this. Our embassies and other diplomatic and consular offices in Europe and around the world have also made a vital contribution. They are working hard to realise our goals through presenting the best case for Ireland and influencing decisions that affect us. Together with the State agencies, they work with Irish business, promoting our trade, tourism, education and investment. In addition, they provide a full range of services to our citizens abroad, sometimes in difficult and tragic circumstances.

As we look to the future, and as we exit the EU-IMF programme, it is timely to reflect on the future direction of our foreign policy. The review will consider a broad range of issues, reflecting the breadth of our external engagement. Issues to be considered will include: how we set our external priorities; how we engage as an EU member state; how we contribute to economic recovery and growth through promoting our trade, tourism and investment; the pursuit of peace and reconciliation on the island of Ireland; the services we provide to our citizens abroad and our relationship with the Irish diaspora; the contribution of our international development policy; and how we ensure Ireland is a respected international actor. These are all important issues, as are other aspects of our foreign policy which the review will consider.

Membership of the European Union is fundamental to our interests, both in foreign policy and domestic terms. Indeed, our EU membership is inseparable from the pursuit of our foreign policy, as it is from so many aspects of domestic policy. As our engagement with the European Union is wider than the foreign policy sphere, being at the core of the day-to-day business of all Departments, the review will not examine our EU policy in detail. Instead, the focus will be on the contribution of our foreign policy and external relations, as well as the work of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade across Government, to the promotion of Ireland's interests within the EU, on the one hand, and to ensuring that Europe's voice is stronger at a global level, on the other. The extent that we are able to promote a strong image of ourselves through our foreign policy outside the EU will contribute to our ability to pursue our objectives within it.

Ireland's foreign policy has been greatly influenced by our engagement in the EU since joining in 1973. Our EU membership influences our relations with third countries, for example, in shaping trade policies with key partners. In turn, our relations with those countries also strengthen our voice at the EU table.

Many of today's challenges, such as cyber security, climate change, and migration, are not defined by borders and regions, but require global solutions. With 28 countries speaking as one, Europe's voice is stronger in the world and this allows the European Union to speak with authority at a global level. The EU is uniquely placed to shape the way the international community addresses these and other global challenges, and Ireland is committed to playing its part in shaping how the EU engages on these issues.

I will now outline how the review is being taken forward. Given the wide-ranging nature of our foreign policy and external relations, it is important that we consult widely. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is facilitating a broad-based consultation process, involving all Departments, State agencies, academics and experts, business organisations, interested stakeholders, and civil society. This is being complemented by a detailed process of consultation and analysis being undertaken within my Department, involving our network of embassies and other offices abroad.

A public consultation exercise was launched on 4 December, in the form of an invitation to members of the public and interested stakeholders to contribute written views. The deadline for submissions is 4 February 2014. Information on how to make a submission is available on the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

I hope those with an interest in Ireland's foreign policy and place in the world will seize this opportunity and contribute views and inputs to the review process.

It is important that the Oireachtas should make its contribution to the review, as it does to the process of shaping and overseeing foreign policy, through the work of this and other committees on an ongoing basis. The Tánaiste last week met the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade for a broad-ranging discussion on the review. A meeting also will be arranged with the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement to discuss issues arising from the review that are within that committee's remit. Issues raised here today, as well as at these other meetings, will constitute an important input to the review process. The Government also welcomes written inputs from this committee and of course from individual Members of the Oireachtas.

The review also will take account of a number of recently concluded or ongoing review processes, including the Government's new policy for international development, namely, One World, One Future, adopted in May this year; the White Paper on Defence currently being prepared by the Minister for Defence and the review of the Government's trade, tourism and investment strategy, Trading and Investing in a Smart Economy. The purpose of the review is to provide an updated statement of Ireland's foreign policy and to identify a series of recommendations for its conduct with a view to ensuring the Government is equipped with the right mix of policies and instruments to protect and promote Ireland's values and interests in a changing international environment. This is a timely and important review. Its outcome will guide Ireland's external engagement in the years ahead. The outcome of the review, scheduled for the second quarter of 2014, will be a policy document setting out the core objectives of Ireland's foreign policy and the measures and instruments required to secure their delivery.

I look forward to working with the Chairman, members of the joint committee and the Oireachtas to ensure the right polices are crafted to promote Ireland's values and interests. I look forward to today's discussion, to hearing members' views and to receiving further input in due course. With the Chairman's agreement, I do not propose to respond in detail to policy suggestions at this time. I assure members however that as always, I will take careful note of all proposals, as will the officials who have accompanied me today, and these will be fully taken into account when preparing the outcome of the review.

I thank the Minister of State for his attendance and for outlining the nature of this review. I perceive today's meeting to be a commencement of the process and I would like to think the joint committee will submit a statement to the review in advance of the deadline on 4 February. Consequently, members probably will have a number of discussions in this regard in the new year and can feed back the outcomes of those discussions to the Minister of State in due course. However, I will make a few points while the Minister of State is present. I welcome the breadth of the review and it is excellent that the relationship with the Irish diaspora is being considered. The Minister of State is aware of how important the diaspora has been to the country over the generations. I did not hear the Minister of State indicate members of the diaspora would be consulted in some way but I assume that organisations such as, for instance, the Federation of Irish Societies in the United Kingdom or the American organisations will have some input into this process because it is important to maximise the use of the diaspora abroad.

I note the Minister of State's reference to the need to examine how Ireland's embassies can contribute towards economic recovery and growth through the promotion of trade and tourism, which is an excellent point. I am reminded of a visit I made to Ireland's consul in Hong Kong some time ago. From recollection, Ireland's trade with Hong Kong alone - not with China - is approximately €1 billion per year, yet we do not even have an office there. While we have an excellent part-time consul, he can only spend a certain amount of time on issues regarding Ireland and promoting trade and tourism. There are opportunities for Ireland that must be maximised but which are not being maximised at present.

As for where Ireland's embassies should be located, there are some examples arise within the European Union. For example, Croatia joined recently and while Ireland has no embassy there, it does so up the road in Slovenia, which is a country of half the size and with which Ireland has half the trade. Consequently, there may be ways of rationalising or altering some local arrangements. We have an excellent diplomatic corps, which on the whole is extremely cost-effective. I will give some examples to the Minister of State. The joint committee recently visited the Baltic states and our embassies in Tallinn and Vilnius are examples of what can be done efficiently and well on extremely tight budgets. The review should consider this issue and should consider how Ireland's representation abroad can be maximised through the most cost-effective means possible. I look forward to forming part of the review and the joint committee will return to the subject early in the new year.

This is an excellent and timely measure. While I acknowledge the Minister of State is not taking detailed comments at present, I will mention something that I have noticed a lot since the economy went into recession in 2008-09. In the 1990s, for example, Ireland had quite strong relations with other peripheral European countries and had an informal alliance with, for the sake of argument, Spain, Portugal, southern Italy to extent and other countries that suffered from some of the same broad issues of peripherality as did Ireland in the 1990s. This is a broad comment but given that Ireland still remains a small open economy that still suffers greatly from its peripheral location and given that Europe, as members discussed earlier, is expanding quite significantly more to the East, does the Minister of State envisage it might be wise for Ireland, in a much larger Europe, to build up again more bilateral contacts or to strengthen its bilateral arrangements with other countries that are more at one with Ireland in respect of the difficulties and challenges they face? I refer in particular to their geographic location and the type of social policies they pursue.

I agree this is a timely and interesting discussion that is to be had. If we are doing as well as we are, I am unsure how matters can be improved and I will be fascinated to find out about what routes and restructuring members will be discussing. The Chairman has already referred to Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, which are three countries bordering each other with three embassies and three small populations. Given that I also wear the hat of a member of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, I am always slightly embarrassed when dealing with ambassadors or visiting dignitaries from countries who remind me that while the population of their countries is vast, with 108 million or 96 million people, they complain of a lack of representation. I do not refer specifically to Singapore or Malaysia - I do not have the detail of the top of my head - but there are countries whose embassies refer continually to the need for representation. I am aware the Department and the Government are under pressure from certain sectors to reopen embassies and for some peculiar reason, it is obvious they want to reopen the embassy in the Vatican more than the one in Tehran. If the Geneva peace talks and developments in Iran continue, I understand it has a regional catchment of interest of approximately 800 million people. Consequently, when considering the review and the question of religiously-based or economically-based embassies, members might consider that aspect.

I welcome the Minister of State and apologise for being late for the early part of the meeting. I concur with what has been said regarding the embassies, which are an important asset for the country. The review should consider the area of trade and the most important trading links.

There are too few embassies. Their location and the large areas not covered by embassies should be part of the review, which should also consider the need to encourage links with new trading partners. The review will be an important process and I look forward to the joint committee participating in it.

I am conscious of the time constraints on the Minister of State. Rather than asking specific questions, members indicated a general desire to be involved in the review and expressed a willingness to engage with it.

I encourage all members to make a submission as the points they raised would form a valuable part of the review. I fully accept Senator Hayden's point on the value of bilateral relations. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of the Taoiseach attach great importance to developing bilateral relations. I travel extensively to what could be inelegantly described as multilateral gatherings, for example, European Union and OSCE gatherings, at which many countries are represented. We should never assume such forums amount to the same thing as building a direct relationship with another country. I am proud to note that in all the work I have observed, this mistake has not been made and we do all we can to develop good relations with EU member states and non-EU countries.

This leads me to the point made by other speakers regarding embassies, which are at the core of bilateral work. The Tánaiste has indicated that the allocation of embassies is under review. Members referred to the work the embassies do and the resources available to them. The many embassies I have dealt with do extraordinary work. Their staff work extremely hard and they are an invaluable asset as we seek to chart a way out of our current difficulties.

I will leave it at that as it is not my role at this stage to engage in the work of the committee. If members were to develop the themes they have raised in a report, it would make a valuable input in the process.

We will do that. On a separate matter, is the January meeting of the General Affairs Council a formal or informal gathering?

My understanding is that it is a formal meeting.

I understand it will take place in the third week of January.

I do not have a precise date.

If it is to take place in late January, it would be best if the Minister of State were to appear before us again in advance of the meeting, probably in mid-January.

The meeting is a formal gathering and it will be held on Tuesday, 21 January 2014.

Subject to the Minister of State's diary, we will seek to arrange a meeting with him in the week prior to the General Affairs Council.

I would welcome that. I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for their contributions and questions.

The joint committee went into private session at 3.24 p.m. and adjourned at 3.26 p.m. until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 17 December 2013.
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