Mr. Kevin Sherry:

I thank the Senator for his kind comments. Next month, the Minister of State, Deputy Breen, will lead a trade mission to India and we will also have a trade mission to the Gulf region that will be led by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. Both markets are important and quite different. In terms of the sectors that we go after, both markets are quite different. India is a market with a huge population. As the Senator mentioned, our promotion in India has been related to cricketing activities and Ireland's success in the market, and one of Ireland well known cricketers has helped us in that regard. We have succeeded in substantially increasing the number of international students who come here from India. This sector will be one of the focuses of the trade mission next month, in addition to ICT and financial services.

It is quite difficult to conduct business in India. My recollection is that India is ranked 138th out of 160 countries in terms of the ease with which to do business. As the Senator will know, it is not easy to conduct business in India but it affords us huge opportunities. One of the areas that we must focus on in India are activities in which Irish companies have a competency and in which they are capable of doing business, and where they can undertake those activities in Ireland. There is not a huge amount for us to gain from supporting companies to undertake activities if they locate their functions to service those opportunities in India. We want opportunities that can be serviced from Ireland and where value is primarily added in Ireland. Opportunities in the project management and construction area can be undertaken here and engineering can be designed to be undertaken here, although we must also have boots on the ground in India.

We are focused on the Indian market. IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the embassy focus on the Indian market together. Mumbai is our primary centre of activity in the region. India remains high on our agenda but the market requires resilience and a marathon, as opposed to something from which we expect to gain meteoric results in the short term.

Mr. Gough may comment on filling gaps left by UK producers. At the moment, there is €7.5 billion in exports to the UK and the Northern Ireland and €1 billion of indigenous companies is accounted for by Northern Ireland. The latter refers to products and services that are produced in the South but sold in Northern Ireland, which is an important market to many companies. Bilateral trade is extremely important and the outcome of Brexit discussions and tariffs will be equally as important to both sides.