Mr. Martin Murray:

Absolutely. It is important to stress that the benefits of an engagement with Asia are not just for Dublin. Like all Corkonians, I am a proud one and I see the relationship being of national and regional importance to Ireland. I know of one Japanese company that opened in Kerry because it wanted to get highly educated local people as opposed to locating in a big city. There are a lot of opportunities throughout Asia, with its huge populations, but we must be targeted in our approach.

Trailblazers include Glen Dimplex, a wonderful Irish indigenous company. Equally, FEXCO is another great company. These are the kind of people that could be included in an advisory group from the industry, working under a Minister and key stakeholders, including ourselves.

There are some countries that we do not include because of a lack of time or resources. As the Deputy mentioned, there is much disparity between countries like rich Singapore and poor Laos. We do not particularly focus on human rights with regard to Myanmar and Philippines, as that is under the remit of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which makes its views very well known. We would sometimes informally brief the Irish Government on areas that we would deem of interest. We once did a briefing on North Korea as a request but it was complicated. It involved a Canadian non-governmental organisation and we were asked to do it off the record. We invited some people from the government to get a current briefing. It was unusual but the goodwill is there. Of course, it is automatic that everything should be ethical and compliant in all engagement. Any serious Irish companies going abroad take that as a given.

Deputy Smith mentioned Cavan and he will happy to hear that this year, during Asian business week, we will give an award to a Cavan-based ASEAN company from Thailand called Indorama Ventures, which essentially rescued the Wellman company in Cavan. It employs almost 400 people and was lost for a few years under private equity. In essence, those 400 jobs could have gone. There are other big companies in ASEAN like that who can come in as IDA Ireland clients and locate anywhere; this can include white knight rescue scenarios.

I will leave "brand Ireland" to Ms FitzGerald-Smith. The question was asked if we delude ourselves and the answer is "Yes". One of the worries that I see in our engagement with Asia is that we very rarely talk about competition or what other countries are doing. I know some members have mentioned the level of resources that other embassies have and we need to put that in context. If we are selling anything from Ireland to anyone of significance in Asia, we would be following a long line of other people who may, in many ways, be selling the same thing. We need to work out our unique selling point and how we can distinguish selling Ireland as one entity. Members will be happy to hear that we went to Belfast in January to engage with city hall officials. It has a China alliance and we were very impressed by the number of people who gave of their schedule to meet us. Belfast gets a bit lost between London and Dublin so the people there were really happy to engage. During Asian business week, two weeks from now, the Lord Mayor of Belfast will attend with some colleagues to see what we are doing. We have already started a process.

The reason we have not done things in London or Belfast is because we work closely with peer organisations in the UK and we are cautious about stepping on their toes. We are very comfortable about working in a joint fashion and we are considering doing an event in London and Brussels. Nevertheless, we are cautious about moving into other geographical territories without clear partnerships. The UK-Ireland joint trade mission to Singapore was a great example of the two countries working together.

Ms FitzGerald-Smith will speak to branding Ireland, given her expertise in social media, as well as the education issues.