Mr. Martin Murray:

The visa is a big barrier. Other countries have succeeded by moving the visa process away from the Department of Justice and empowering embassies on the ground to process visas. Many countries have moved to systems of online approval for visas, which speeds up the process while ensuring its integrity. Resistance to change is human nature but without change there is no progress. The committee might engage with the Department of Justice and Equality to examine, with relevant stakeholders, what other countries are doing, what best practice is and what has been proved to work in a safe and positive way. We would be happy to assist in this regard.

The perception of Ireland is still a huge problem. When I lived in Japan, the Japanese companies only saw England, as they called the UK, France and Germany. I asked a CEO of a company about Ireland and he said Ireland was irrelevant. That was fine because it meant we knew what we were dealing with and could react accordingly. Recently, I spoke to the CEO of a global Japanese company and he thanked me because he had forgotten about Ireland until we met. There is no reason an Asian company will think about Ireland unless we give them reasons to do so.

The Deputy asked me about Ireland's role in financial services. People in financial services are obsessed with risk management and Ireland can be a safe harbour for Asian investment. They are also obsessed with a country's talent pool and we have a very advanced talent pool in regulatory compliance, the fund sector and aviation finance, of which we are the home. Asia Matters is partnering with the Department of Finance and PWC to research Ireland's successful branding as regards financial services in the US and to see how we can amend it to resonate better with Asian financial institutions. Many do not understand the Irish financial services ecosystem and what assets are within it in terms of talent and skill set.

I was asked was space in Dublin a real problem and the answer is "Yes". However, a lot of new office space will come on stream in the coming years. If people feel that opening in location X will create a challenge in respect of visas and family members being able to join, as well as in the areas of office space and housing, while location Y has none of those things then they will choose Y, all things being equal.

Television stars create a buzz on social media but it is temporary. This is the case with greening, too, which is wonderful but needs to be sustained. The flights to Hong Kong are going to be a real game changer and it is estimated that 70,000 will make the journey in a year. We have to ask where they are going to go and we are working on the ground in this regard with the consulate of Ireland and KPMG, with an event in March to discuss how we can build a structure around that flight to create benefits for Ireland.

We are always respectful of human rights and when we get queries from members we redirect them to the right quarters in Ireland to address them. North Korea is not an area of focus within our work and is only considered within the view that, God forbid, if the US went to war with North Korea in any capacity US tourists would stop travelling, which would have a huge impact on Ireland. This reinforces the need not to put all our eggs in one or two baskets but to diversify, and particularly into Asia.

The Deputy asked whether we had done costings and we have started the process of doing that. We have also started to look at the costs of not putting the right resources on the ground, in the shape of lost business.