DFA: Evacuating 8,000 stranded Irish during pandemic was biggest challenge ever faced

Simon Coveney, Minister for Foreign Affairs (left) and Niall Burgess, Secretary General, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ireland. File picture: Julien Behal Photography

Evacuating 8,000 stranded Irish people from every part of the world when Covid hit has been the biggest challenge ever faced by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Embassies are now involved in jobs that are "wholly new" including securing PPE and getting people home from multiple countries at the same time, the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs' has said.