IRELAND has half the number of diplomatic staff and missions abroad as other EU countries of comparable size, according to the White Paper. Numbers of Irish diplomatic staff have remained the same for the past decade with "resources being stretched" to cover new areas.
Ireland now has 47 overseas missions but over half of these have only one or two diplomatic officers.
The diplomatic service employs 975 people in total with the annual running costs accounting For less than half of 1 per cent of total Government expenditure. As part of a cost saving exercise, the Government is encouraging the possibility of sharing embassies with other EU member states.
The geographical spread of missions is uneven with almost half in western Europe and another seven in North America. There are eight missions in subSaharan Africa, three in the Middle East, five in Asia, one in South America and four in eastern Europe.