Mr. Theo Dorgan:

I can offer an anecdote to supply an answer to Deputy Smyth's question again. In 2001, the Golden Gate University in San Francisco held a festival of Irish writing organised by our consul general. After the first session, he turned to me and I said there were 22 chief executives of Silicon Valley companies in the audience with whom he had been trying to get meetings for six months. He could not get meetings with them for six months but they all turned up to hear poets and novelists speak. One of the people present was Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea was there because she was then a student of the poet Eavan Boland, who has done so much to open access to poetry for Irish women. I had just edited an anthology of Irish poetry and I gave a copy to Chelsea. Two days later I was in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. because I was presenting a programme of Irish writers. Jean Kennedy Smith told me there that the book I had given to Chelsea was on Bill's desk. In one weekend, drawn purely by the arts, we had a presence on the desk of the President of the United States as well as before 22 chief executives of Silicon Valley companies. I came away inspired. I remember saying to the ambassador in Washington that every Enterprise Ireland delegation that comes out there should have as the keynote of its mission an arts event, a performance of a play, a concert of music or a poetry reading. They should harness what Mr. King has aptly called "soft power" and work in conjunction with those in the arts.

The Senator said that the Departments should be working together – of course they should. There should be no trade delegation anywhere in the world that is not linked to a high-profile cultural event. It is a simple proposition. Trust me: it works. When President Higgins went on a state visit to China and he presented the President of China with an edition of W.B. Yeats's poems translated into Chinese, the man took President Higgins's two arms in his two hands and said it was the most meaningful gift his people had ever been given by a Head of State. When President Higgins made a state visit to Athens in February, he presented a beautiful volume, printed by Stoney Road Press, that included two of his poems translated into Greek. That was his gift to the President of Greece. I was there and the Greek President had tears in his eyes and said it meant so much. We need to be aware of how powerful our cultural presence is abroad. What are we known for? Is it the excellent management of our banks? Is it for our superiority in providing health services and housing to our people? The only thing we are known for-----