Mr. Ian Talbot:

We have contacts with overseas chambers of commerce. The Irish Chamber of Commerce in China is based in Shanghai. Indonesia has a population of 170 million and it is a very good potential market for Ireland. In the past there was no great reason for us to have an embassy in Indonesia but we need to revise that policy. That number of people, 170 million, is a lot of people. They are technology orientated. I agree it is worth considering.

Senator Jim Walsh asked a question about outsourcing and what can we do to make it happen. Effective outsourcing requires a certain process. The first point is that the process needs to be in reasonably good shape before it is outsourced. If the process is a mess, the outsourcer will not be able to solve it. I refer to PPARS as a good example. The delivery was essentially taking it as it was and doing it, but that did not work. A process would need to be re-engineered before being moved on. It needs to be a two-part process. Effective work is being done in the public service on the creation of shared service centres, which is a rationalisation of work being carried out in different organisations, such as payroll systems, HR services and so on. Once a process is in a shared service centre, there is a better opportunity to outsource it. However, once it is in a shared service centre, there may be a view that the job is done and that can be where it stays for the next 20 years.

There is an opportunity now to outsource some activities successfully compared with three or four years ago. I suggest that some converters should be asked to make it a success. The easy things should be done first as the more complicated things will take longer and the worse it will look.