Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is a long time.

I was interested in what Mr. Maguire had to state about visas. My colleague is correct in that we had a restrictive regime in place. For a while I was involved in trying to open up the visa regime between Ireland and China and Asia generally. The Government has made it much easier, for instance, for Chinese people to get visas. That happened largely as a result of a concentrated and targeted campaign conducted by interests in Ireland, including, for instance, the language schools which operate a big business, particularly involving students from China, and also tour operators which are trying to bring groups into Ireland but which are finding it almost impossible to get visa. One had to travel thousands of miles in order to a get visa, which was nonsense. In this regard, I think Mr. Maguire is speaking primarily about the north African Arab countries-----