South Korea’s parliament will complete a key stage in the process of allowing Irish beef imports by the end of this year, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has said. Speaking in Seoul after a meeting with So Byung Hoon, the chairman of the parliament’s agriculture committee, Mr McConalogue said this would leave only one further stage in the approval process.
“My specific request of Mr So was that this file completes the required Parliamentary process without delay. I was delighted to secure a commitment from Mr So that he will move to have this stage completed by the end of this year. This would clear the way for the final stage in the process which is approval of the Irish beef plants who wish to export to Korea,” he said
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will raise the issue when he meets South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol later this week at the end of a three-day trade mission to Seoul, which also includes Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Simon Coveney and Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris. Representatives from 21 Irish companies are with the Ministers in Seoul and Mr Coveney and Mr McConalogue attended an Enterprise Ireland business breakfast in the city on Wednesday.
“We made a decision about six months ago to have what’s called a Team Ireland trade mission week once a year and that it would happen over the Halloween period when the Dáil was in recess so that ministers could try and carve out some time to spend three or four days in a strategic market in a part of the world where we believe there is significant potential for growth,” Mr Coveney said.
“South Korea is the first choice of destination for that Team Ireland trade mission. To have a Minister for Higher Education, a Minister for Agriculture, a Minister for Enterprise and the Taoiseach here I think sends a very strong signal at a very senior level politically to South Korea, but also senior business leaders here that Ireland is serious about trying to build a partnership and a relationship with this country.”
Mr Harris on Wednesday evening visited a memorial wall at the site of last year’s stampede in Seoul’s Itaewon district which left 159 young people dead. He is visiting a number of Korean universities, accompanied by representatives from four universities and nine English-language schools.
“We used to have nearly 3000 students in here who used to come from Korea to Ireland to learn the English language. The Covid pandemic obviously disrupted travel patterns significantly. We’re looking to rebuild that. To do that, we’re launching our international education mark, a new quality assurance mark by the Government of Ireland for accrediting English-language schools for the first time,” he said.
“We’re very conscious that Korea is now in negotiation with the European Union to join Horizon Europe. This is the way we do our research. This is the way we partner between countries to do research on the grand challenges the world faces. We’re really eager to see how Ireland and Korea can work together in that context.”
