Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have been to some of the ASEAN countries. As the witnesses will be aware we have opened a number of embassies in new ASEAN countries in recent times, including Bangkok and Jakarta. Obviously, Indonesia, which has a population of 240 million, is a huge and diverse market. Such is the size of that market there it stretches a distance similar to that between New York and California. There is also huge potential in Thailand.

Current focus is on the Chinese market. Prime Minister Li Keqiang recently visited Ireland and there have been a huge amount of trade missions into China in recent times, with almost every member of the Cabinet having visited there at this stage. I would like to discuss the Ireland House concept, which operates in New York, Tokyo and so on. Enterprise Ireland has an office in only one of the five ASEAN countries. Would it be possible in the context of the resources currently available to Enterprise Ireland for it to link up more frequently with the embassies in the other countries? It must be difficult for one office to engage with all of the countries. I acknowledge the resource issue mentioned by Mr. Sherry but everybody has a resource issue, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We would like to see further embassies in other countries. Could additional resources be allocated to address that issue in the context of the ASEAN countries? Vietnam is an emerging economy. We have had a great deal of success in this region, including in China in terms of our infant milk formula and the Kerry Group research and development in Singapore, which we visited last year. We now have an embassy in Indonesia. While this embassy was originally an aid embassy it has now also become a trade embassy. Is Enterprise Ireland giving serious consideration to development of the Ireland House concept in this region? I know that it works closely with the embassies but has consideration been given to the provision of additional resources to promote Ireland in this region, particularly in the food and IT sector?