Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I fully agree with the Minister on the trade promotion element and that trade is now firmly embedded within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. That is important. It is logical and it makes sense. To follow on from what the Chairman has said, I would like to ask the Minister about the new trade strategy. When it is published, what will the process be? Will the Minister being bringing it to this Committee? That might be useful for us to look at because it is certainly a crucial part of it.

In the context of St. Patrick's Day, we all understand the importance of that. I see that there are metrics now, which the Minister has designed within his Department, of the number of visits, trade missions and that type of thing. They are very interesting to track but there seemed to be a drop between 2015 and 2016 on Minister-led trade missions supported by State agencies and the embassy network. If I am reading it correctly, there were 34 in 2015, which dropped to 18 in 2016. The Minister has targeted 24 of these Minister-led missions in 2017. Perhaps I am reading it wrong but it is good to be able to track it like that. Will the Minister elaborate on that?