A new section of the Tánaiste's Department has been established to implement the Global Ireland initiative and I welcome the Government's attempt to secure a seat on the UN Security Council. I refer to the recent advertising by the Government in this regard. It has had 200,000 views on Twitter, 30,000 on the Merrion Street YouTube channel and 60,000 on Facebook. This seems to be targeted at Irish citizens. How does targeting Irish citizens have anything to do with the voting intentions of member states voting on the seat on the UN Security Council?

There is a very easy answer to that one. Irish citizens want to know what is going on and they want to know what Global Ireland is all about. We are going to commit substantial public resources to expanding our diplomatic network of consulates and embassies. We will commit substantially more resources to our development aid programme in Africa and across the Middle East. The public has a right to know about foreign policy as well as domestic policy, but I am not sure it has received the coverage it should given the global nature of what it is to be Irish. Many Irish people see themselves as global citizens having spent a lot of their working lives abroad.