John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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In his opening statement, the Taoiseach mentioned strong relationships in Europe and the world. When he took office, the Taoiseach made an announcement about increasing our footprint or presence globally. Many people agreed that we had and had a significant and widespread presence throughout the globe and that tapping into that and utilising it for even clear economic purposes made a great deal of sense. From what I do, my experience is that we have never been as active in the United States of America and Washington, in particular. I base that on some knowledge of what previous Administrations did when it came to the USA. It is fair to say we have had a stronger presence in Washington over the last eight months.