Trade Promotion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-28
============================================================

Martin Conway (IND), Administrative Panel

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, for coming to the House. He is deputising for the Minister, Deputy Peter Burke. The Minister could not be more ably deputised.
What I am looking for this morning is that Ireland would open an office in Taipei. It is not setting any precedent. It is only reopening an office that was closed in 2010 or 2011, prior to the crash. We must bear in mind that we have a very similar history to Taiwan in the sense that we were colonised for 800 years. Taiwan has a gigantic neighbour in China, which has made no secret of the fact that it believes Taiwan belongs to it. Yet, Taiwan is a democracy. It has a democratically elected government and has operated as a democracy for a long time, similar to ourselves. The similarities between Ireland and Taiwan are very strong, not just in terms of our history but also our economy. We have a very skilled high-tech workforce. Eight or nine of the top international tech companies have their European headquarters in Ireland. Similarly, Taipei is one of the world's leaders when it comes to semiconductors. It has a very advanced tech industry. Its population is something around 24 million or 25 million. Economically it is one of the top performers in the world. It does not make any kind of economic sense that Ireland and the IDA do not have an office in Taipei. As a country we should be trying to attract industry and business from Taiwan to Ireland. We must bear in mind that 16 of our European colleague countries have offices in Taipei, all co-ordinated under a European office. Similarly, our nearest neighbour, the UK, has an office in Taipei. Switzerland has an office in Taipei, yet Ireland does not have an office there.
Many delegations have gone from these Houses over the years to Taiwan and have benefited enormously from their very generous hospitality. There has been an awful lot of talk and commitments by people who went there that a lot would be done to open an IDA office in Taipei. I was there once. Members of these Houses were there on multiple occasions, yet we have not seen any delivery of the one simple ask of the Taipei ambassador to Ireland and his team and the government in Taipei when the delegations visit, which is that we would open an office there. It is a simple request. It makes economic sense and it is the right thing to do. I hope the Minister and the IDA would see the economic merit and the business case for opening an office. It has been sought many times. I would like to know the reason for it. I sincerely hope the reason is not because pressure is being put on by the Chinese ambassador and government not to do so. That would not be appropriate and it would not chime with our history as a small nation that was colonised by a big country for many years. Of course, it would never be officially said but I sincerely hope it is not the reason either officially or unofficially, covertly or overtly.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-28