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THE DEPARTMENT OF Foreign Affairs helped over 800 Irish people who became caught up in seven major crises in 2015.
The department’s emergency response team help Irish citizens caught up in the terrorist attacks in Paris, earthquakes in Nepal, the Germanwings air crash, the Berkeley balcony tragedy and the June terrorist attack in Tunisia, among other crises.
The figures are included in the department’s annual report for 2015.
Other key findings in the report include:
Commenting on the Report’s publication, Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said his department “was directly engaged in the separate visits made to Ireland by the prime ministers of China and India and by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, the launch of the new Irish Passport Card, the 60th anniversary of Ireland’s UN membership, the Global Irish Civic Forum and Global Irish Economic Forum and the Fresh Start Agreement in Northern Ireland”.
We also helped to promote 2015 as the Year of Irish Design, brokered agreement on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, convened an Irish Humanitarian Summit, completed Ireland’s first term on the UN Human Rights Council and made an important contribution towards helping to end the Ebola virus outbreak in Sierra Leone.
“By any measure these and other areas of our work as outlined in the Report were significant achievements. I am grateful to all the staff of the Department and in our diplomatic missions abroad for their dedication and public service.”
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Apart from saving the environment, moving to renewable energy sources will reduce the power that regimes like Russia and Saudi Arabia have.
You look at the awful human rights abuses of women in Iran, and then you look at what it’s like for women in Saudi Arabia…an entirely different and even more awful world.
@Kevin Farrell: but Saudi aren’t in the Axis of Evil… So they’re alright then. Right?
I think I’ll send a few tweets now myself just to remind myself that I will never set foot on Saudi’s bloodied sand.
@Brendan O’ Gorman: I worked there for a few years and the work was fine,the people I worked with all stayed on and still there.We learnt a lot,first and foremost u must see everything with your own eyes to form an objective opinion.U clearly haven’t learnt that lesson and never will.
@Paul Owens: they taught you how to be obtuse and vague?
@Paul Owens: I’m sure the money was fine, Paul, but how you could read the above article and think this is a country worth defending in any capacity is beyond me
@Paul Owens: what proportion of the people you worked with were female?
@Míchael Búrké: Obtuse,vague,ok,apart from a redundant health services here,can’t buy a house,slave to landlords,can’t walk the streets at night will I go on…u do all those things in Saudi no problems,,as I said u have to see the whole picture not your myopic view along with all the others who never worked or seen the place
@Paul Owens: built on slave labour the whole place..can’t understand how people go on holidays there. Wouldn’t even do a stop over myself. !
@Barbara Coleman: I was in Dubai and disliked there. Men who think Saudi was fine are looking at things from their eyes. Have you ever seen American Dad Saudi episode?? Hilarious well worth seeking out
@Paul Owens: I can’t. I cannot travel over to Saudi and walk the streets alone. If you cannot stand on the mains st n say the leader is an d*ck then that country is not anywhere I would care to be
@Sharon Brennan: Tell me that when u have no home to live in and are on the streets with the rain pisssing down,, amazing how opinions will change
@Barbara Coleman: u would go there if u had to,and learn not judge from a distance!
@Sharon Brennan: u were there on your holidays I assume?and if so ain’t u v lucky to be able to afford to go.
Ah trumps pals.
Ah the great repressive countries of the world… Can’t really live with them and unfortunately can’t nuke em…
Guantanamo Bay. Obama has kept it. Biden has kept it.
Imagine if he knew his crime was a national sport here!
Don’t they know only the US are allowed to treat US citizens poorly.
Saudi most hateful regime in world
Diabolical grammar in the first paragraph ….. Sub-editor on his break.
@Aisling Boyle: Diabolical comment to be fair Aisling. Why try ruin a person who may or maybe not realise a mistake. Having said that Aisling anything to say on the article itself?
@Aisling Boyle: Well it was a piece robbed from AFP so can’t have a go at The Journal guys here!
@Ciarán O’ Donoghue: The bloodie google translate needs a smack on the side.
@Aisling Boyle: huh? The man made critical of the kingdom, what’s your problem?
@Paul Gorry: The journal should have someone proof read their articles before they post, It would
only take a few minutes, this app is used by hundreds of thousands of people. It’s very unprofessional.
@Paul Gorry: the grammar is awful, clearly not proof read and it’s right to highlight this
@Julian King: the piece is another persons work and has been taken from another site maybe the journal doesn’t have the right to alter it ?
Meanwhile we IJsselmeer Dublin project the Saudi flag on the Samuel Beckett bridge every year. Why? To sell some cows?
@Peter McGlynn: *we in Dublin.
Saudi Arabia has no interest in anything apart for themselves, there is too much money for the well-off. In January, a businessman paid $14.3 million(!) for a local licence plate labelled “1” at an auction.
Send them back from whence they came.Riding Camels.
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