Ms Br?d O'Connell:

One way the State could help and which would be a very easy win for us would be to work with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the ambassadors across the various markets that our member businesses are already exporting to, where they either want to win new business or deepen the relationships they have with existing buyers overseas. That would be a great help. There are businesses going on various different trade missions but they are not going under the Guaranteed Irish umbrella yet. We would like to be invited to take part in those trade missions. That would be a great offering for this community, at a political level, to go back through Guaranteed Irish to our members. That would be seen as very positive and helpful. Businesses can go through various other agencies but Guaranteed Irish members are not always with those agencies. Ours might be the only agency to which they are attached. That would be an immediate win for us.

In terms of other national and international opportunities, we would like to be on the invitation list. We are not on it at the moment. We are a very poor not-for-profit organisation but we are a very professional outfit. We have 14 very professional people working in the organisation and a stellar voluntary board of directors from the highest echelons of business in Ireland. All of our directors do business both at home and abroad and have that qualification. I see it as a missed opportunity for our members and it is a nice piece that could be sewn up very quickly.