Keynote address by the Tánaiste at the inaugural Latin America and the Caribbean Business and Economic Forum

Check against delivery

Cairde na hÉireann, dia daoibh agus fáilte romhaibh go léir don ár gcéad Fóram Gnó agus Geilleagrach.

It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you to this, the inaugural Ireland – Latin America and the Caribbean Business and Economic Forum.

I’d like to extend a special welcome – as we say here, cead mile fáilte – to Minister Chet Greene, Foreign Minister of Antigua (ANT-EE-GAH); Minister Kerrie Symmonds, Foreign Minister of Barbados; and Minister Douglas, Foreign Minister of St Kitts and Nevis (NEE-VIS), for taking the time to support this Forum.

I want to acknowledge the efforts that you, and all those who travelled here to join us in such encouraging numbers, have made to help ensure that today is the beginning of an exciting new chapter in our relations with all of your countries.

Thank you all.

Ireland is an island nation, and I grew up in a port city, Cork, very aware of the possibility and opportunity that lay across the Atlantic ocean.

The Atlantic is the basis upon which our histories are intertwined; our peoples are intertwined.

Today’s conversations about our economic links, our trade links, our investment links will help ensure that our futures are intertwined, refreshing and building the connections that will turn today’s opportunities into tomorrow’s reality.

When I look around this room I see close friends and partners, but I do not take your friendship, your partnership, for granted.

Friendships, partnerships, require work if they are to be sustained, and that is why Ireland is working hard to enhance our links with the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

We have invested in an enhanced diplomatic presence, with new Embassies in Bogota and Santiago, an Office for Central America, and most recently an Office for the Caribbean.

We are increasing the number of people working in our Latin American missions.

And in our Global Ireland Strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean published last year we set ourselves ambitious objectives to enhance the connections that unite us.

It is also why today is important. Today is about setting out the next steps forward in our connections.

It is why I will travel to Mexico and Colombia in the New Year, and why the number of Ministerial level contacts we have is increasing each year.

We have seen in recent years, in the response to the pandemic and also during Ireland’s tenure on the Security Council, that solutions to global problems can only be found through global solutions.

But also we have been reminded that a sense of global community can only be maintained by sustained investment in relationships at the political level, yes, but also across our societies.

For me, this people to people connection is the bedrock of successful and sustainable business relationships.

While it is of course true that trade and investment make each one of our countries better off, the knowledge of each other that comes from working together is the basis of true friendship.

And in that friendship too we find opportunity.

The theme of today’s Forum is “Expanding opportunity”.

How can we build upon our historic links to give them new, contemporary twists?

How can we add a modern resonance to names such as Daniel Florence O’Leary, Eliza Lynch, Bernardo O’Higgins, Admiral William Brown and the Saint Patrick’s Batallion?

How can we make the most of a shared history and connection that sees a Belfast and an Athenry in the middle of Jamaica?

The fact that Argentina is home to the largest Irish community outside of the English-speaking world is something we need to celebrate more.

Communities from Brazil, Mexico and many other countries have made Ireland their home in recent years, setting up their own businesses, networks and even Chambers of Commerce.

In these connections, and more, there are opportunities to be explored.

That’s why my department commissioned a fascinating study on Ireland-Caribbean relations in partnership with EPIC Museum, which you can see today in the lobby.

That study captures the realities of that history, reminding us that our relations are complex and multi-layered; relations which we are obliged to examine and remember in full.

Of course, the opportunities we are here today to talk about and grow are, in the first instance, business opportunities.

We start from a good place. Our economic ties have never been closer. Our trade, as Minister Calleary outlined earlier, is reaching record figures.

Our first two panels today highlighted some of what is driving this growth – and why it is essential to continue working to tap further into the potential that is there.

I mentioned our strengthened diplomatic presence. It includes dedicated agriculture capacity in the region, essential to building deeper links between our agribusinesses.

Enterprise Ireland too – and Leo Clancy was eloquent in his ambition for growth – has strengthened its capacity for engagement with Latin America and Caribbean.

But listening earlier, I was struck, and indeed am regularly struck in my travels around the world, by how much that diplomatic contact is amplified by business connections.

Great companies who work in food, in energy, in transport, in manufacturing…. Areas where often our skillsets and our offers work in complement rather than in competition.

Ireland’s membership of the European Union means that companies from Latin America and the Caribbean do not just have access to the Irish marketplace but to a marketplace of nearly 450 million potential customers.

And I am sure that in Ireland you will find willing partners with whom to work in accessing those amazing opportunities.

I am conscious too of our shared interest in innovation.

It is why I am particularly interested in and excited by Ireland’s new Masters level fellowships programme for Latin America, launched in 2022 and which continues to expand across the continent.

The awards bear the names of two important Irish individuals – Roger Casement, the Irish activist who was instrumental in shedding light on human rights abuses in the Amazon region; and Cecilia Grierson, the first woman in Argentina to qualify as a doctor – and daughter of an Irishwoman.

So far, 28 students have participated in these fellowships schemes. I look forward to welcoming many more in the coming years, and I think there is real potential there.

These connections will, I trust, seed future generations of meaningful personal contacts, and everything that flows from this.

I am ambitious too that the academic contacts that are being forged will also allow us to develop our research links – research that will address the problems and create the opportunities of tomorrow.

Through Ireland’s Strategy for Partnership with Small Island Developing States, we are working hard to deepen our relationships with our partners in the Caribbean.

Through this Strategy, we have transformed our longstanding cooperation with Caribbean partners at the UN as well as in the World Bank and the wider Caribbean Community. There have already been interesting exchanges of learning on tourism development, amongst other areas.

It time now to renew that engagement.

On 8 December, at the COP28 Summit in Dubai, and together with Ministers from our island partners, I will launch Ireland’s second national Strategy for Partnership with Small Island Developing States.

I look forward to meeting my international Ministerial colleagues there.

We are joint stakeholders in this partnership, and I am confident, that together, we can build on and accelerate the progress of recent years.

In recent years, Ireland has also expanded its development cooperation footprint in the Latin American region, including a focus on Central America in particular. This picks up our historic investment in sustainable coffee production in the region and, importantly, in building value chains that enable local business to thrive.

Conscious that climate risk is an impediment to business success, I am pleased to announce today that Ireland will, in 2024, significantly expand our existing funding to climate-related projects in the Central America region.

Friends, ladies and gentlemen,

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, today’s Forum is the start of an exciting new chapter.

I am ambitious that we make good the promise in our relationship. As I said, Ireland is very pleased to be investing to do that.

I am heartened by the energy here today, in the conversations in the room and in the margins. Conversations which are generating the momentum needed to realise those opportunities.

Conversations which will not end this evening, but which we will take forward into the future, and which we will pick up again when this Ireland – Latin America and the Caribbean Business and Economic Forum next reconvenes.

Bainigí sult as an cuid eile den ócáid, agus go raibh mile maith agaibh go léir.