Sunday, December 4 2005 14:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Dublin:: Ireland, called the 'Celtic Tiger' for its booming globalised economy, is now in the process of putting in place a legislation to liberalize its visa regime for facilitating entry of Indian professionals and students as the country's Prime Minister Bertie Ahern prepares to visit India next month.

54-year-old Ahern, the first Irish Prime Minister to make a bilateral visit to India, is heading an over 100-member Trade Delegation, including top representatives of some of the well-known multinational companies in the software and pharmaceuticals sectors, three important Cabinet ministers and officials seeking to deepen business and political ties between the two countries.

During his six-day visit from January 16, Ahern will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, address top CEOs at a meeting of Chambers of Industry and Commerce and visit Mumbai and Bangalore.

Following complaints that its visa regime was becoming a big barrier for Indian aspirants, a draft legislation has been introduced in the Lower House of the country's Parliament to introduce a Green Card or work permit system to help both Indian professionals, especially in the Information Technology sector and students who go to pursue studies in Ireland.

Officials said the legislation is under discussion in Parliament and the effort was to push for its early enactment.

A small country of over four million people with one of the most globalised and export-driven economies and high levels of foreign direct investment at over Euro 170 billion, (a Euro equals Rs 53) Ireland is all out to make its economy broad-based to avoid shocks.

Enterprise Trade and Employment Minister Michael Martin told a group of visiting senior Indian journalists that Ireland wants to make the visa system easier for Indian professionals and students.

"We issue about 1,250 entry permits in these categories and we want to encourage," he said.

Officials said even ahead of the enactment of the legislation several steps were being taken to facilitate easy issue of visas in India, the most important among them being the appointment of officials of the Department of Justice, the ministry responsible for issuing visas, in the Irish Embassy in Delhi.

The Justice Department officials would be fully empowered to decide on student visas unlike the past practice of all the applications being processed in Dublin.

10 centres were also being opened in different Indian cities for receiving visa applications and the work has been outsourced to VFS (Visa Facilitation Service).

Often complaints have been received from Indian students seeking admission in reputed institutions like the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), Trinity College and University College Dublin (UCD) for pursuing Engineering courses and research careers. The students complain that even after admissions visas are being denied and their fees not returned.

Ahern, who is in his second term and keen on performing a hat-trick in the elections next year, has put in place an 'Asia Strategy' bracketing India along with China, Japan, Korea and four other countries in the region.

"We have no tensions. We have no bilateral problems. There is no reason why we (Ireland and India) should not build on this strong base," Ahern told the Indian journalists.

Flanked by Michael Martin, Minister for Education, Art and Culture Mary Hanafin and Art, Culture and Language Minister Michael John O'Donoghue, the Prime Minister said, "India is important for us and it makes for huge sense to say that India should collaborate with us in different markets. It is for us to build on the present friendship."

Keen on building relations with India, Ahern said, "It is a two-way process. When we headed the European Union during our Presidency and in the UN we worked with India very closely we also met all our international obligations including on issues like the UN reforms."

In his previous term, Ahern initiated the "Asia Strategy", something akin to the "Look East" policy initiated by India during the days of late P V Narasimha Rao, whose outcome has been to highlight the importance of properly targeting Ireland's export marketing efforts.

In the second phase of the Asia strategy, Ireland wants to intensify the levels of political, business and other forms of interaction with the priority Asian countries to benefit from trade and other ties.

The Prime Minister's Trade Delegation, which is still being finalised, is likely to include a number of CEOs and top executives of multinationals in Ireland and is expected to give a big push to plans for cooperation between the companies of the two countries especially in the IT, pharmaceuticals, particularly the Bio Tech, sectors with proposals for joint ventures in third world countries also to be taken up seriously.

Replying to questions, Ahern, who had visited India in 1997 as Leader of the Opposition, said his Trade Mission was an exploratory mission to prospect opportunities for the Irish companies to work with the Indian companies in either countries and in third countries as joint ventures.

Ahern's delegation would include more than 100 representatives from companies, including CEOs and top executives, Enterprise Ireland, which looks after growth of small and indigenous industries in Ireland and Industrial Development Authority that works for attracting Foreign Direct Investment.