'Minutes of meeting held on Wednesday 16 March 1955 to consider (1) suggestions for co-ordination of the sectionalised work of the Department of External Affairs and (2) the integration of the work of the home and external divisions of the Department.'

Present
Dr. T.J. Kiernan
Mr. W.W. Warnock
Mr. Molloy
Mr. Horan
Dr. C. Cruise O’Brien
Mr. Lennon
Mr. O’Riordan
Mr. Morrissey

2. The meeting was in the nature of a preliminary discussion and exchange of views on suggestions put forward for the co-ordination of the work of the various sections of the Department. It was decided that a further meeting would be necessary for the making of decisions or recommendations.
3. Abolition of Information Section
   It was proposed (a) that the Weekly Bulletin, the pamphlets in the series ‘Documents on Ireland’ and the booklet ‘Ireland — an Introduction’ should be handled by the Cultural Relations Section; b) matters relating to Partition and interviewing of foreign journalists by the Political Section and c) miscellaneous enquiries from abroad by Missions abroad who should build up their own reference libraries to enable them to deal with these. It was agreed that the Political Section should take over partition matters. It would not be so simple to amalgamate the work at (a) above with that of the Cultural Relations Section since the financing of the activities of these sections was not similar, one operating under a Grant-in-Aid and the other from a Departmental sub-head. As regards visiting journalists Dr. Cruise O’Brien pointed out that they are not entirely concerned with political matters but may be interested in cultural and economic affairs. It was necessary that the official who interviewed them should be able to put them in touch with persons (not necessarily or usually officials) who could help them. Dr. Kiernan thought that, in any case such journalists should see the political section. The present position as regards (c) above is that replies to miscellaneous enquiries received are prepared in the Information Section and released either direct where the enquiry is from a country where we are not represented or otherwise through the relevant diplomatic mission. It was thought that the work of the Information and Cultural Sections should be directed outwards and that activities within the country should be avoided. It was hoped to persuade the Cultural Relations Committee to agree to leave the organization of exhibitions in Ireland etc. to other bodies and to concentrate on making Irish culture known abroad. The Information Section did certain internal work e.g. issue of press releases. While it might be argued that the Government Information Bureau should do this work, it was not possible for this Department to ensure that GIB would do so.
4. Political Section
   Dr. Kiernan felt that the Political Section should be regarded as the centre of the Government to which all sections would work and through which all matters requiring the Minister’s personal attention should be channelled. Mr. Morrissey mentioned however that matters do occasionally arise which require ministerial decision but nevertheless could not be classed as political. Mr. Lennon agreed in general with the suggestions regarding the work of the Political Section which were that (a) fewer newspapers might be read with consequent reduction of ‘cutting’ (b) the work done might be made more realistic by the drawing up of a list of subjects in which we are interested and cutting out the present preparation of memoranda on various political matters. As regards (a) it was generally felt that although some newspaper reading might be cut out, a certain amount was nevertheless necessary and should be done by a responsible officer. It would not do to leave this entirely to the library who might either miss important items or bring them belatedly to the attention of the political section. Reading might however be restricted to a few leading newspapers and journals. On point (b) Mr. O’Riordan said that while the preparation of political memoranda might have little point at the moment, it would be necessary, should we be admitted to UNO to produce information on a wide field of subjects as our delegates at meetings would require to be au courant with matters with which we were not primarily interested. In general the political section was hampered by the lack of any definite foreign policy. Since we have no foreign commitments the section should be primarily concerned with Partition and matters arising out of that.
5. The UN documents might be transferred to the International Organisations Section. Mr. O’Riordan thought that this would not be practical until we became members of UNO. A certain amount of filing of these documents could be done by the library but in such a way that it would be simple to keep in touch with certain aspects of UNO activity. Mr. Molloy mentioned that the IO section deals at the moment with certain economic matters relating to FAO, ECE, etc. and thought that the Economic section should handle these.
6. Economic Section
   Mr. Molloy disagreed with the suggestion that purely trade matters should be divorced from the work of the Economic Section and handled by the Consular Section. Purely routine trade enquiries etc. are not handled in the Economic Section but go direct to the Department concerned. Representations on trade matters and negotiating of trade agreements were handled in the section as a matter of policy. If the work of the Department were to be reorganised he felt that all economic matters should come within the scope of the Economic Section. Mr. O’Riordan said that when the Economic Section had in previous years handled the economic work of the Council of Europe the position had been unsatisfactory. This was possibly due, however, to lack of staff.
7. In general it was felt that the staff of the Department had been reduced to a minimum and that the suggestion of the Department of Finance that one counsellor post be suppressed (upon the appointment of a Counsellor to Strasbourg) should be resisted. It was possible that too much routine work was being handled at a high level and if it were possible to avoid this a certain easing in the pace of work might be effected. If certain work which could be considered unnecessary were discontinued, it might be possible to engage on more valuable work, e.g. preparation of a Yearbook, additional leaflets in the ‘Documents on Ireland’ series etc.
8. Final decisions on the matters raised and suggestions for the integration of the work of the home and external divisions of the Department were postponed for later discussion.