Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I realise that Iran is buying a great deal of meat from Australia, New Zealand and Brazil, as well as from Romania. It is buying a lot of meat from Romania. Only recently, the Iranians purchased 50,000 lamb carcasses. In 2018, they imported 160,000 tonnes of meat. It is a huge market which would like to trade with us. They have made it very obvious that they want to do business with us. Other countries are doing business with them and the Europeans are getting around the so-called US sanctions to sell all kinds of stuff. There is no logic to us not doing it. Surely, given the current situation, it would be a great boost to the agriculture sector if we developed a better relationship with Iran. It would be helpful to open the embassy in Tehran. I acknowledge that is a foreign affairs matter and not the Minister's responsibility but he should push for it. All the western European states that left, except Luxembourg, have put their embassies back in Iran. Lately, we have opened new embassies elsewhere and it is mad that we have not done so in Tehran.

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