Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Neville. Limerick has had a huge number of jobs announced. I am delighted that unemployment is going down and that 2 million people are back at work. We cannot be complacent. The Deputy's question is a valid one. There is an Asia strategy being devised with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and we are also feeding into that strategy. The IDA is diversifying away from the US towards Asia and so is Enterprise Ireland. The trade missions have been beefed up. For example, I was on one just recently to Japan, China and Hong Kong, and the Minister of State, Deputy Breen, was in India recently. The Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, was also in China. That is continuing to happen. The information coming back from Asia, China and India is that the companies there are very interested in Ireland, they are very aware of Brexit, what is happening here and also what is happening with the US change of Government. We will certainly be keeping a very close eye on that with the IDA and Enterprise Ireland to make sure we diversify the markets.