Mr. Martin Murray:

What the Deputy said is very interesting and true. In regard to twinning, there are currently 14 twinning relationships between Ireland and China, one of which is particularly good. The remainder are dependent on individuals and relationships. The best twinning relationship is the one between Cork and China because people have invested the time and effort in building trust over many years and they have joint exchange of teachers in the education system. They are currently doing a huge project on health care and building future healthy societies. Cork is the most advanced in the twinning relationship. Twinning relationships are very often put together with goodwill, but there is no focused structure behind them. We are planning an event with key people in local government and Government around how to move twinning relationships away from generic relationships which produce nice photographs but in reality have little substance to more focused economic partnership relationships. We need to find areas of co-operation. We hold an Asia matters summit in Cork annually during which we focus on specific sectors and developing relationships therein. Deputy Grealish will be glad to hear we are planning a similar event for Galway and in time for Shannon, Limerick and so on.

The Deputy's comments regarding the tourism area are also true. Ireland is a small country. The greening of landmarks has a very good effect. It is also quite effective when key landmark buildings here turn red to mark the Chinese new year. This could be maximised. Tourism Ireland does a very good job in this area with limited resources. As we have previously stated to the committee, people in tourism often forget that one does not necessarily have to go to Asia to get Asian customers because they are already in Europe. For example, there are 55,000 Japanese people within a 40 km radius of London. There are similar numbers in Paris, and divided between Frankfurt and Dusseldorf. There are similar numbers of Chinese people in London but fewer Koreans. There is no reason they could not come for long weekends, particularly off-season. One of the biggest trends in China and Japan is for ladies in the 20 to 35 age group to visit cities where they stay in five star hotels and spend a lot of money having fun. There is no reason that Dublin, Cork and so on could become destinations in that regard, particularly from European hubs. There is similar business to be captured in relation to Valentine's Day, particularly in Dublin given that the remains of St. Valentine are here. There are opportunities to meet specific needs. In China, there is a huge obsession with authentic experiences, which feeds into the work of Údarás na Gaeltachta in terms of providing people with opportunities to engage with local life in rural communities. This is what people want.

In regard to visas, this is an ongoing issue. We have been told by experts from the World Travel and Tourism Council that countries such as the US and South Korea have changed their visa strategy for China and, in carefully selected scenarios and protecting national sovereignty and risk assessment, are providing visas for up to ten years and this has no detrimental economic effect or criminal effect on the US or South Korea. We need to be bold. We have previously told the committee that because it takes three weeks for a CEO of global Chinese companies based here to get approval to come into Ireland------