Meetings of EU ministers will take place in Cork, Kerry, Wicklow and Mayo as well as Dublin Castle in the second half of the year as part of Ireland’s European presidency.Details released by the Department of Foreign Affairs show each Irish Government Minister will chair a meeting of the EU Council of Ministers over the six months of the presidency, with several seeking to bring the gatherings to their home constituencies.Dublin Castle will be the venue for 16 such meetings, as well as a gathering of EU heads of government in November. This will come a day after a meeting of the European Political Community, which brings together EU heads with other like-minded European non-EU states, including the UK and many countries from eastern Europe. This will be hosted by the Taoiseach and take place in Dublin Castle.All the European Commissioners will meet in Cork in early July, where they will be hosted by Ireland’s Commissioner Michael McGrath, a former Cork South-Central TD.The meetings are likely to involve considerable security arrangements and result in traffic restrictions, though the department declined to discuss security matters.It is expected that assistance will be sought from foreign militaries to protect some of the EU meetings due to lack of capacity in the Defence Forces.Minister for Children Norma Foley confirmed she would bring her European counterparts to Tralee, in her Kerry constituency, for an informal meeting of the Council of Ministers in November.“The informal meeting in MTU [Munster Technological University] Kerry will provide an opportunity for Ministers to discuss shared priorities at EU level,” she said in a statement.Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary will host a meeting of the council in his Mayo constituency, while Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan will host the telecommunications council in Limerick.[ Inside Ireland’s preparations for EU presidency: ‘You have to make the country look good’Opens in new window ]Aside from the 22 meetings of the Council of Ministers, about 250 other meetings involving foreign officials and politicians will be held in Ireland as part of the presidency. A further 140 associated events are also planned. About 30,000 delegates will come to Ireland during the presidency. Because few meetings are scheduled in August or the last two weeks of December, the effective period in which presidency meetings will take place is about 4½ months – in July, and then from September to mid-December.The biggest meetings will be the European Political Community summit on November 12th and the informal meeting of the European Council on November 13th in Dublin, which will be the largest such event ever hosted in Ireland, attended by 49 heads of state or government. There is likely to be a huge security operation in place for the meeting.The Irish presidency will be based around three “pillars”: competitiveness, values and security. The presidency will also seek to make progress on the multiannual financial framework, the EU’s multiyear budget. Making progress for accession countries, including Ukraine, will also be a priority, as will improving relations with the UK.