Ireland's economic recovery remains fragile and is incomplete, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has told a gathering of ambassadors in Dublin Castle.

Mr Kenny the Government wanted to help business create 40,000 new jobs in 2015.

“Our economic recovery remains fragile, it’s incomplete and while confidence is rising growth has not yet been felt by significant numbers of the Irish population. We are now dealing with the expectations of success from a rising economy and these are difficult to handle in many cases,” he said.

“That is why the number one goal for the priority of the Government for 2015 is to help businesses in this country to create 40,000 more new jobs this year.”

Mr Kenny told senior diplomats attending the Global Island conference that jobs rather than deficit ratios or bond yields where what mattered most to the Irish people.

Turning to European affairs, he said Ireland wanted the UK to remain in the European Union and it was clearly in the State's national interest and the wider European interest that our nearest neighbour did not leave.

While Ireland was respectful of the ongoing democratic debate in Britain, “it is impossible for us to remain silent”, he added,

Ireland would give backing where possible for reasonable adjustments in the operation of the EU, “but friendship is predicated on openness and honesty” and Ireland would speak frankly if it felt requests being made were unreasonable.

Despondency and frustration among the peoples of Europe was at a very high level, Mr Kenny said. "Holding the middle ground is becoming an increasing challenge as people move to the far right and the far left."

Mr Kenny praised ambassadors and other senior diplomats for rising to the “single greatest foreign policy challenge that our state has ever faced”.

He said they had since 2011 helped restore Ireland’s “battered” reputation, “as the face of the Government overseas during a very difficult and traumatic period”.

He added: “I know that wasn’t easy. I know it often felt like swimming against a very strong tide.”

Mr Kenny said Government had taken a strategic decision to devote time and resources to build reputation internationally, particularly in Europe and the US. The path of constructive engagement had been chosen, rather than confrontational unilateralism.

It had been a formidable task. However, he believed that the strategy and the effort needed to implement it had been vindicated by events.

No effort had been spared by Ireland’s representatives abroad in highlighting this country’s stregnths and winning back confidence its ability to recover.

Mr Kenny said “all but the most committed begruders and eurosceptics” accepted the situation had improved.

He said realising Ireland’s full potential as a global island in the 21st century would not be possible without a dynamic foreign service. Intelligence from Ireland’s network of ambassadors abroad would always be valued in Dublin.

“Who are better at putting our shoulders to the wheel than the Irish?

“The world around us is changing rapidly...and our own country has undergone profound change, not least in the last decade.”