His Excellency Mr. Brendan Rogers Ambassador of Ireland and Myanmar
H.E. Brendan Rogers is he first Ambassador of Ireland to live in Thailand. He also currently serves as Ambassador to Myanmar. He is also Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of Ireland.
H.E. Ambassador Rogers as a young man was bitten by the travel bug and after graduating first lived and worked in Africa as a young man and later lived and worked in the United States of America in the role of construction worker.
After returning from his travels and having earned sufficient money, he returned to university studies after which he returned to Africa where he was appointed to consular positions in several African countries representing Ireland.
Ambassador Ryan then informed us of the many changes in the Irish Diplomatic Corps. Most communication is today conducted through social-media and on-line inter-active web based sites.
Most of an Ambassador’s role today, involves establishing close personal links with businesses in the host countries in order to encourage bilateral trade with Ireland.
His Excellency then elaborated on the relative key economic factors of both Ireland and Thailand and the respective trade balances. And how these had changed from the 1960’s to the current time and why they had changed.
H E Brendan Ryan, then identified the need for a major revamp of the Thai education system in-terms of content and teaching methodology. In this respect Ambassador Rogers felt that Ireland could greatly assist Thailand. Ambassador Ryan believes that for Thailand to achieve Thailand 4.0, a greater number of computer and IT professionals must to graduate in order to install and maintain the computerized information and robotic manufacturing systems required to take Thailand forward into the latter half of this century. H.E. believes that the greatest challenges facing young people today are global warming, immigration and political strife.
H.E. Ryan believes that Ireland has prospered today because of:
lower tax rates;
Industry and Commercial friendly establishment programs; for companies such as Microsoft; Apple; Hewlett Packard; Dell computer; Cisco, Twitter; Facebook; Linked In.
Worker and company establishment and export support programs;
Membership of The European Union;
Ambassador Ryan’s next posting will likely be to The United Nations in New York where he will lead the Irish delegation seeking for Ireland to join the U.N. Security Council.
After screening four brief clips of Industrial and cultural shows the audience were invited to ask Ambassador Ryan a series questions which related to employment opportunities and requirements in Ireland. Opportunity was taken for a group photograph whilst a plaque and vote of thanks were extended to H.E. Ambassador Ryan for his presence and presentation to us. That was followed by a visit to Rev. Bro Martin Komolmas who presented HE. Ryan with a beautiful porcelain AU commemorative cup and saucer set. H.E thanked Brother Martin for his hospitality and congratulated him on his foresight in establishing Assumption Universities campuses.