Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

I could not agree with the Deputy more. He is quite right on that. He will have seen the American college football and the opportunity that has brought. It is more than just a game. I addressed a group of CEOs in the Mansion House. There were more than 900 of them in the room. It demonstrates how many people had come here. They were down in UCD looking at some of our exciting start-ups. They were in the farm attached to it. They were calling it "farmageddon" because of the approach. It was two very agricultural states that took part. We saw more opportunity at the NFL. In golf, we see a lot of opportunity. In relation to Japan, there are so many people in parliament in Japan who have a strong interest in rugby. That is why we have put forward in our new tourism policy a section on sports tourism and sports diplomacy, which will be a huge opportunity to strengthen ties with places like Japan. We know from our defeat in the World Cup back a number of years ago that when people went to bed they thought that for Ireland, it was only a matter of turning up when Japan beat them that time. That is still remembered fondly over there by the Japanese when we go over and visit them. We have a huge amount of opportunity to draw our two countries closer together. In architecture, music and all those areas, we have a lot in common with Japan.

As the Cathaoirleach quite rightly pointed out, we have a lot of more work. Ireland House in Japan is the biggest ever capital expenditure by Ireland in a country outside of Ireland. That is highly significant. We have Bord Bia, Tourism Ireland, the IDA and Enterprise Ireland all under the one roof and working together led by our ambassador. That will provide an opportunity to work with us in developing that model for rugby and other areas of sports tourism.