Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister has outlined, the education in Ireland unit is an integral part of Enterprise Ireland's efforts, both nationally and internationally. I commend the unit for its professionalism and the commitment it has shown in significantly expanding our presence internationally. We can often underestimate the creative and excellent use that can be made of social media in this regard. The unit has been anxious to establish an education in Ireland social media presence in each of our target countries. For example, on Facebook, education in Ireland-Vietnanm has 11,000 members, while education in Ireland-India has 500,000 members. We are communicating directly with students and their parents through very innovative use of social media, for which I commend Enterprise Ireland. We are seeing the benefits accruing from this. Excellent material is being provided in the social media videos created by Enterprise Ireland on the significant benefits of studying in Ireland and in other excellent resources from IDA Ireland. Excellent work is being done and it is beginning to produce dividends. For example, two years ago we only had 150 students from Saudi Arabia studying here; now we have almost 2,000. Shortly we will receive 750 PhD students from Brazil through our international marketing process, using all of the resources of Enterprise Ireland and our embassy presence. Everybody is working together to ensure the best possible outcome.