Mr. David Cooney:

I am not familiar with all of the details of this particular arrangement. I met Members of the Oireachtas recently. We do not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Nevertheless it is a significant economic entity. There is no problem in developing economic relations with Taiwan and it has an office here. The way our external economic relations are normally handled in this regard is through the agencies. There was an agency office there, but for reasons of its own the agency decided to close it. In some other countries Enterprise Ireland and the IDA integrate this into their foreign service. It may be some of the representatives in Taiwan are representatives of this nature. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade would not have a representative there because of the political connotations.