Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

All this work is actively under way already. We are enjoying a growing tourism relationship with China. This is one of the reasons we introduced a new visa programme along with the United Kingdom. Under the programme, a potential visitor to Ireland from China can use the same visa to go to the United Kingdom and vice versa. VisitBritain and Tourism Ireland are working together and are to target long-haul visitors to come to both countries on the same visa. This is the very reason we had a five-day mission last week led by Tourism Ireland. It was to determine how we could generate demand to sustain direct flights between both countries. That is the reason Tourism Ireland has a presence in four Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Beijing. We are doing all this work to generate demand sufficient to sustain a direct service between Ireland and China. As the Deputy will appreciate, I am not in a position to direct a company the State does not own to provide a flight between both countries. However, we are working very hard to establish an environment in which such a service could be launched.

See this speech in context