Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for coming in. It has been a very interesting discussion. The members raised a number of interesting points. There is no question that engagement with the Caribbean presents tremendous opportunities for Ireland as the Minister for State is well aware. Before Brexit the primary voice of many of the Caribbean nations in their dealings with the European Union was the UK. As the UK is now outside that, it now falls to us. Many of the countries are English speaking and there are huge opportunities there. I know we have tapped into this already. I had the privilege in a number of ministerial meetings of engaging directly with Caribbean counterparts about a range of issues that are available for us to develop. The climate issue is an important one to note. The work we are doing on the oceans at the moment is worth acknowledging, particularly the really strong work we are doing in helping Caribbean nations deal with the problems around ocean pollution and the effect it is having on them. This is a complementary problem to climate but also a major one. It is important to see a strengthening of the direct diplomatic channels because there is a sensitivity there. We can act in good faith as a broker between the EU and the Caribbean on a number of issues they have had where they feel that they have taken tremendous strides to meet EU requests and requirements in terms of financial regulation. That has not necessarily been reciprocated in an appropriate way by the European Union. This is probably more to do with competition that regulation.

I welcome this process. It is excellent that we are continuing the engagement. The Latin American side has been covered by a number of other colleagues but I would re-emphasise that the real potential for us lies in developing that relationship with the Caribbean area.