David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are one or two other issues in the opening statement. Dr. Coates mentioned the Department is actively involved in a number of files such as the EU's generalised scheme of preferences, GSP, which is to expire this year. What are the plans to continue with that? Cambodia has been excluded from that particular group of preferences but Myanmar is still actively in there, which causes me huge concern. There are also questions about Bangladesh. I do not expect Dr. Coates to have the answers today that but as it was mentioned in the opening statement, it is important to draw attention to those issues.

He also mentioned the Cotonou partnership agreement. That is now 20 years old. Can we have an update on how that is going and what is going on there? It is linked directly to the goals we spoke about earlier. Those are the two issues I wishes to pinpoint draw attention to from the opening statement.