Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Talbot's presentation. He made an interesting comment about less reliance on the possible potential in the BRIC countries. That commentary is gaining currency at present so perhaps he would elaborate on that. He mentioned other countries on which we should focus. I am surprised he omitted the Single Market in Europe.

As somebody who deals with business, he will know better than us about the need for currency stability. We saw what happened here in 2008 when sterling depreciated so much against the euro. A stable euro is critical for us. The more trading we can do within the eurozone, the more stability there will be for business planning and so forth. An area that has been mentioned as possibly having potential is north Africa. Mr. Talbot referred to some of the countries there. Earlier this morning President Obama spoke about the need to advance an EU-US trade agreement. Hopefully, that will happen. It will benefit trade for both trading blocs. Of course, the detail in that agreement will be critical for this country, as the protection of sensitive products, particularly food, beef and dairy products, is an important issue as well.

Mr. Talbot quite rightly mentioned the need to try to eliminate overlap and duplication between State agencies. That can be difficult as State and statutory agencies and Departments can be empire builders as well. The same should be done in the private sector. There is probably unnecessary overlap between Chambers Ireland and the Irish Exporters Association. I am sure there is room in both the private and public sectors to reduce costs and have a more effective targeting of resources.

I read a comment recently which I think was attributed to the Irish Exporters Association. Some difficulty had arisen in the British market in regard to our exports there during January. There was some movement in the currency. I am not familiar with what movement there was vis-à-vis the euro, but it was suggested that it is a matter we must watch. The stability in the values of the two currencies has, thankfully, helped the export market over the past few years. Mr. Talbot mentioned that the website of the British Department of Trade and Investment is an example of best practice. Will he comment on the effectiveness of that website?