Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for my late arrival. I have had an opportunity to read through the presentation and I congratulate both of our guests on it. I wish to endorse the comments that have already been made. In the interests of brevity, I recognise all of the issue so accurately outlined by our guests. I wish Mr. O'Neill well in the final few days of his presidency. It seems that no time has passed since our first meeting following his coming to office.

I wish to make two points. I ask our guests to reflect upon them and perhaps over the next couple of years Mr. Duffy will consider how the relationships involved might be consolidated. The Irish constitute the biggest European tribe in the world. Germans constitute the largest ethnic group in the United States but its members do not recognise each other for all sorts of reasons.

The biggest tribe is the Chinese and the second biggest is the Indians. We are the next in terms of networking.

The GAA has brought a dimension to networking that I do not think anybody could have predicted and its scale clearly surprises itself.

In terms of ConnectIreland, the business network, we need an Irish salesperson in every village in the world. As Sean Lemass famously said, the world does not owe Ireland a living; we must earn it. I refer to the globalised world market and having that kind of connection, like in Milwaukee where Danes have come into contact with Ireland. If we can turn people into sales people for Ireland, provided our product is good and people want to buy it, then our children and our grandchildren will have a living in a global economy.

The funding comes from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. What can we do? What do the witnesses think we should explore or examine to consolidate that? I am thinking about 20 years or 30 years into the future rather than 20 back. I say "Well done" to the GAA.