Mr. Martin Murray:

I appreciate the input of members. I will go through the questions systematically and as quickly as I can. If I may, I will leave the "brand Ireland" concept to my colleague, Ms Stephanie FitzGerald-Smith, our director of marketing and communications, who has significant expertise in the matter.

I thank Senator Jim Walsh for his positive comments. He mentioned the clarity of the recommendations, which was our purpose. We know committee members are busy, as is everyone else.

We mention Taiwan in our economic report, albeit in a small summary context on page 57. Like everyone else, we are limited by resources and time, but we have nothing but goodwill towards Taiwan and its people. We see it as a very good trading partner for Ireland. As Asia Matters is non-political, we do not get involved in politics. Certainly, we have had discussions with Taiwanese representatives here on how we can conduct business events together. We are very open to this. We have a very open mind and, as I say, our focus is on trade, not politics.

I was asked about FÁS and Farmleigh. Over 30 years ago Ireland created an amazing programme in Japan which was called the "FÁS graduate programme" whereby young engineers from Ireland were funded by the State on placements for two years in the best global Japanese companies in the world, including Mitsubishi and Panasonic. While there, they learned the language and about the culture and the Japanese way of doing business. A very good example of the benefits, apart from the networks, access and market understanding, is Mr. Greg Timmons, a programme graduate and now CEO of Takeda Ireland, which has two plants here. He went into the company, learned how it worked and developed good relationships. He is a very smart, capable and professional person and they were so impressed by the calibre of Irish graduates that they asked him if he could open a company here. He was so successful that they opened a second. It is a great tribute to Ireland and the quality of our education, as well as personally to Mr. Timmons, that the second plant manufactures tablets and medical products for the Japanese market. It is done not from within Japan but from with Ireland such is the trust in the calibre of the leadership and workforce here. It is a very good example, but, unfortunately, the programme closed after big issues arose with FÁS. The baby was thrown out with the bath water, which was a terrible mistake. We had spent over 20 years developing relations with the big Japanese companies by sending Irish graduates. When I lived in Japan, the programme was the envy of the USA and all other European countries. They all wanted to know how we had done it, yet we closed it down. It was very damaging to the relationship and resurrecting would take time and effort and regard for Japan's sensitivity. There is a certain way to do it with the Japanese, but closing the programme in that way was a big mistake.