Promoting Ireland
At home and abroad, we play a vital role in promoting Ireland’s economic and trading interests, our cultural profile and our reputation internationally.
Our aims
We are committed to promoting Ireland as a place to do business, to study and to visit – and to defending Irish interests and promoting our values. Together with our Team Ireland partners (including the IDA, Enterprise Ireland, Tourism Ireland and Bord Bia), the Embassy network plays a key role in this work in locations around the world. Ireland has a network of over 95 Embassies and Consulates. With support from DFA HQ, Embassies and Consulates work to:
- Build strong, bilateral partnerships with countries around the world: partnerships which are crucial for the pursuit of our trade and investment links
- Promote Ireland’s trade and investment objectives more broadly, alongside our Team Ireland partners
- Enhance Ireland’s profile and reputation, including through sharing key economic messaging
- Promote Irish culture and creative industries, and connection to Irish heritage and tradition
- Maintain and enhance our links with Irish communities abroad
DFA also works within key multilateral bodies, including e.g. the EU, UN and OECD, to ensure the rules-based international order, which is so essential to Ireland’s prosperity and well-being, is protected and developed.
The context for all of this work overseas, undertaken with Team Ireland partners, often within the framework of Local Market Teams, is the Global Ireland 2025 Strategy, an ambitious Strategy for Ireland’s place in the world which promotes efforts to grow and diversify export markets, inward investment, and tourism.
Local Market Teams
Local Market Teams were first introduced in the context of Government's Trade, Tourism & Investment Strategy 2010-2015, which established priority markets and brought Ireland's Embassies and State agencies together to drive collaboration, and ensure we are operating in the most effective way in promoting and defending Irish interests and values.
The Trade and Investment Strategy for 2022-2026, Value for Ireland, Values for the World, was launched by Government in April 2022. DFA is playing a key role in the implementation of its seven priority actions.
One of those actions is a review of the Local Market Team framework. The implementation of the recommendations of this review will mean that Team Ireland overseas will be best positioned to promote and defend Irish interests, in the context of changing trade flows, geopolitical challenges and the expansion of Ireland’s footprint under the Global Ireland 2025 Strategy.
Trade missions
Trade missions are a valuable way of developing new and existing markets overseas for Irish businesses. This is particularly important given the value of exports to our economy. We work with a number of Government Departments, including the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to support a programme of trade missions. Each year, DFA also supports a full programme of incoming and outgoing high level political visits with strong economic, trade and promotional elements.