Episode 44 - Jennifer Bourke

We are delighted to meet Jennifer Bourke, the Consul General of Ireland to Hong Kong and Macao. With a busy schedule that mixes politics, business and culture, Jennifer is loving life in Hong Kong, where she embraces the city’s energy, works closely with the Irish community and promotes the many attractions of her homeland. She speaks with our Senior Partner Colin Cohen. Stay tuned.

 00:44 Introduction to Jennifer Bourke
 01:05 Jennifer's Role and Responsibilities
 02:58 Recent Activities and Cultural Promotion
 03:27 Jennifer's Background and Education
 06:24 Journey into Diplomacy
 09:21 First Posting in Thailand
 10:39 Experience in Vancouver
 12:38 Current Role in Hong Kong
 14:51 Supporting the Irish Community
 16:16 Legal Assistance and Consular Services
 18:34 Relations with Mainland China
 20:17 Promoting Business and Finance
 25:51 Cultural and Historical Ties
 29:40 Challenges and Future of Hong Kong
 32:33 Conclusion and Final Thoughts 

Host: Colin Cohen
Director: Niall Donnelly
Producer and VO: Thomas Latter         

Established in 1985, Boase Cohen & Collins is an independent law firm equipped with Hong Kong knowledge and global reach. Please visit our website.

Transcript

[00:44:00] Colin: Today, I am honored to be speaking with Jennifer Bourke, who, for the past year, has served as Ireland's Consulate General to Hong Kong and Macau. This is her first role as head of mission, having held posts previously in Bangkok and Vancouver. And we sincerely hope that she's enjoying our great city.

Now while Jennifer's official duties, of course, involve representing Irish interests in high level politics, Level dialogue with Hong Kong and mainland governments. Her real passion and a perk of a job is perhaps celebrating and sharing Ireland's rich culture, sporting prowess, artistic achievements with the wider community.

I'm sure she can tell us much more about this. Jennifer, welcome to Law & More, and as I always ask my guests, what's been keeping you busy recently? 

[00:44:52] Jennifer: Hi Colin, thank you so much for the invitation. It's great to be here with you today. So as you rightly said, yeah, I've been here for a year and absolutely enjoying my time in Hong Kong. It's one of the most incredible cities I've ever visited, let alone lived in. So I consider myself to be very, very lucky to have the opportunity to live and work here.

In terms of what's keeping me busy, when I was thinking about this, because I know you always start off with this question, it took me a while to think, how should I answer this? Because there's so many things that we do at the Consulate. So maybe I'll just give a broad rundown of the types of things that we do, that we've done, and that we're looking forward to.

So, broadly speaking, I think One of the reasons that people find kind of diplomats and consul generals and generally speaking so interesting is because what we do sometimes is a bit shrouded in mystery. People kind of don't really understand what we do day to day. And I can tell you now, it's not all champagne and Ferrero Rocher.

We are very busy doing real work, I promise. So, I suppose the purpose of me being here overall is strengthening the Ireland Hong Kong relationship. And what does that mean? It takes many different forms. So everything from, as you mentioned, high level meetings with government secretaries and senior officials and high value stakeholders, right down to providing consular assistance to people who, who have found themselves in difficult circumstances. From the cultural promotion to economic promotion and talking about our values. And so, for example, at the moment, something that we're planning for and really looking forward to is the visit of the Irish Whisky Association to Hong Kong in November for the HKTDC Wine Spirits Expo. So we're going to have an Irish Pavilion.

We'll have I think it's four distilleries coming to visit. We'll do some events around that. So that's really exciting. And that gives us a really good opportunity to promote Ireland Hong Kong trade. 

[00:46:38] Colin: That's fantastic and I'm really looking forward, hope I get an invite to taste the whiskeys. 

Let's track back in a little bit of time, your early background, tell us a little bit about how you got into your early days, your education.

There's a little bit of background and where you were brought up in Ireland.

[00:46:53] Jennifer: sure. So I kind of probably have a slightly unusual journey to the Foreign Service, and so I was born and raised in South Dublin, and I went to an all girls Catholic school, as most women of my generation did, and went to university, did an undergraduate degree in Theology and Classics in Trinity College, Dublin, a Masters in Peace Studies, Postgraduate Diploma in Event Management And you can tell I liked college.

Probably spent a little bit too long in university. 

[00:47:23] Colin: Out of theology, classical civilization, and peace studies, which did you enjoy most?

[00:47:28] Jennifer: So that's a really difficult question because I loved all of them.

[00:47:31] Colin: It must be one.

[00:47:31] Jennifer: Exactly, I was gonna choose Peace Studies. So Peace Studies, I feel like Classical Civilizations and Theology kind of led me to Peace Studies, to be honest.

So for me, my whole life growing up, I always had this feeling of wanting to I don't know if it's make a change, make the world a better place. I know it's a little bit naive, maybe kind of quite innocent, but I always just remember wanting to do something with my life that had a bigger meaning and a bigger purpose, over and above kind of making profit or just kind of business focused.

I knew that that wasn't really for me. And so when I went to university, and I had a real passion for classical civilizations and theology in terms of like, who are we, why are we here, how did we get here? Was always that kid at the front of religion class, like, annoying the teacher and asking a million questions, like, what does it all mean?

So when I did my undergraduate degree, honestly, I left with more questions than answers, but it led me to thinking about it like, What's the application of wanting to make a world a better place? And peace studies really kind of hit home for me. So it was things like studying the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in South Africa, Northern Ireland issues. The relationship of the First Nations people and Indigenous peoples in Australia and Canada.

And also then from the Irish perspective, actually my thesis was on governmental apologies for State sanctioned violence. And that was, in part, inspired by, at the time, the call for governmental apologies for sex abuse in the church, and in state institutions in Ireland.

And that kind of conversation was going on. So at the time, when I was in my early twenties, and a very, kind of, passionate student they were all the things that I cared about and wanted to make a difference.

To learn about and to a certain extent, there are things I still really, really care about. Not to a certain extent, I do still care about justice and peace and making the world a better place.

And I suppose that's, in the early days, that's kind of what sowed the seed...

[00:49:19] Colin: You enjoy Trinity in Dublin?

[00:49:21] Jennifer: I enjoyed it. Oh, it's amazing. Absolutely. It's an incredible university.

[00:49:25] Colin: I visited, it is a great, great place.

[00:49:27] Jennifer: It's incredible. I mean, we have so many incredible universities in Dublin, but I'm definitely slightly biased. I have to say, but actually I have a master's from UCD as well. So when I was in my thirties, I went back to as a mature student to do another master's degree. And that was in UCD.

[00:49:40] Colin: So you then left university and you went, you went into a bit of industry, tell us a little bit about that and how you got yourself into the diplomatic core. 

[00:49:48] Jennifer: I started off, I suppose when I left university, I went straight into retail. So when I grew up, my dad owned a shop. He had an off license, and his father before him. So kind of merchants each down the way.

So because my dad owned retail, I grew up working in retail. And after university kind of went in saying I don't really know what I want to do. I know retail, let me go in there and see what that's like. So I went into retail then I went off did a little bit of travel came back went into retail management. I love retail, I really enjoyed it, and I have so much respect for anybody who works in hospitality and retail, because customer service all day, every day is no easy feat. So I did that, but it came to a point where I thought, you know what, I feel like I'm not really being challenged anymore, I'm not really sure if this is for me, it's not really stretching me in terms of what I feel like my potential is, and also that feeling, that inner feeling of like wanting to make a difference, wanting to be part of something bigger was always kind of niggling away at the back of my mind. One of the things I'm so proud of in Ireland about the Irish Civil Service is our entry system.

So it's very equitable in terms of, All of our central government positions are publicly advertised. And so anybody of any background can apply for any role. So obviously if it's a specialised role you have to have particular skills and experiences. But for the junior diplomat role, which is how I got in, you had to have an Irish passport and an undergraduate degree and that was about it.

So you apply it, you go through six or seven rounds of Psychometric testing and group work and interviews. And I think the year that I joined, the year I did all the testing there was about 2000 entries for 30 jobs or 35 positions. And yeah, I was one of the lucky ones. So...

[00:51:23] Colin: So you got into the Foreign Office, the equivalent of the Foreign Office in...

[00:51:27] Jennifer: Exactly, it's the Foreign Office, exactly. And I suppose one of the things that, in terms of that kind of entry system, which I love, is that idea of diversity. So I think sometimes in some foreign systems, and maybe historically in Ireland, you end up having the same types of people. So people with a particular type of education, people from a particular type of background, people who have maybe come from well to do families who can kind of do internships in Brussels and things like that, and so you end up in kind of an echo chamber.

But the Public Appointment Service made, I think, a deliberate move to try and widen that and to recruit with diversity in mind. Say, look, if we're representing Ireland abroad, we need to actually represent Ireland in all its facets. And so they opened it up to that idea of kind of transferable skills, which was always there, but maybe there was more of a focus on that.

And so for me, coming from a retail background, even though I did have like a solid kind of educational background, didn't necessarily have the exact experience to get in, but certainly the skills that I've learned along the way stood to me.

[00:52:24] Colin: And so you started off in Ireland, in a foreign office. And then how did the postings come about? I mean, so, so then you went off to did it, how long was it before you went off to, it was Thailand first, wasn't it? 

[00:52:37] Jennifer: So I was in the press office in headquarters for my first year, and then I headed off after the first year. So I was only in Dublin for a year. We sent people out pretty quickly, and because there's nothing like learning on the job, you have to jump in at the deep end and get your experience as soon as you can.

So I was in the role a year when I went off to Thailand, and that was a huge learning experience. It was incredible. It was the first time I'd lived in Asia. It was the first time I'd lived alone abroad for a significant period of time. And I'd been in New Zealand and Australia before, kind of backpacking.

But always, you know, with friends and in hostels and this and that. So this was the first kind of serious overseas experience that I've had. And then obviously dealing with things like trade promotion, political engagement, councillor work, all of that thing, I really cut my teeth in a very big, big hole.

And I worked as an incredible ambassador over there as the deputy for that role, so it took a while to settle in. And I remember before leaving, thinking, you know, I'll just do one posting in Asia, and that'll be it. I don't really have any kind of knowledge or interest or whatever.

Somebody said to me, Asia gets under your skin. 

[00:53:41] Colin: Really? So that's great. So you normally do a two year stint, is that, or two or three years? 

[00:53:45] Jennifer: Three. 

[00:53:46] Colin: And then you go back to the foreign office and spend time in the foreign office before you go to your next posting. 

[00:53:52] Jennifer: Sometimes, though you can, what we call, cross post. So that's what happened to me from Bangkok to Vancouver, I got the opportunity to cross post. It's not just kind of straight forward like three years at home.

That kind of is the rule. Generally, three to four years and then home. But in some cases, we cross post. So I went from Bangkok to Vancouver and to the deputy role in Vancouver. And at that time, Vancouver was a new mission. So we were just opening it. So when I arrived, we were sharing offices with the German consulate in Vancouver, and we were trying to get our new office, trying to hire our staff, all of that thing.

So again, a small mission. Big Irish community in Vancouver, incredible work, wonderful people, and of course Canada's a great country and Vancouver's a beautiful city, so thoroughly enjoyed my time there, however it was during COVID, so I do have some regrets with Vancouver that I never got to build the relationships and really develop a lot of the things that we worked on as much as we could have done if it hadn't have been 

[00:54:43] Colin: And then back to Ireland, how did Hong Kong come about?

[00:54:48] Jennifer: So back to Ireland, I was on the US and Canada desk for two years, and then what happens is every year, a list gets circulated, so different systems, different countries have different systems, but in Ireland, so a list gets circulated with vacancies, you rank your preferences, and then you make a pitch, you pray to the gods, and the rest is in the hands of, HR and Senior Management. So, when I saw Hong Kong come up, I knew that I had to put it down.

First of all, because it was a head of mission posting, and it was something that I really wanted to do for my own career development. But also, just, I knew that and know now for sure that Hong Kong is just an incredible city, vibrant, dynamic, so many opportunities and really just an incredible place in Asia where there's so much going on.

It's really a hub and a center of activity and I'd had friends and colleagues before who had spent some time here and they all said to me, Oh, you've got to 

[00:55:36] Colin: But you've not been to Hong Kong before?

[00:55:38] Jennifer: I'd been for like a weekend in 2017.

[00:55:40] Colin: The sevens weekend I would suspect 

[00:55:42] Jennifer: It wasn't the Sevens weekend, actually. I wish it had been the Sevens weekend. No, I think it was a weekend in July somewhere.

But yeah, that's kind of how Hong Kong came about. And I was then lucky enough to have been appointed for the position.

[00:55:54] Colin: We're at the consulate general here in Hong Kong. Now you are fairly new, consulate. You explained a little bit as to your role, but now you're actually here. You're in charge of the consulate 

general and have a little bit 

about, you know, the set up 

[00:56:09] Jennifer: Sure, so the consulate itself is 10 years old. So there was kind of there was a period back in 2014, 2015, where we opened three new missions in Asia Pacific. So it was Hong Kong, Bangkok and Jakarta. And Hong Kong was opened by my colleague, Peter Ryan, who was here for five years and followed by David Costolo.

So I'm the third consul general. I'm the first female consul general, which I'm very proud of.

We're a team of six, so we're a small team. By Irish standards, most of our missions are kind of small to medium sized. And that's from my prior experiences as well. So Bangkok and Vancouver were both kind of small, medium sized missions. So I feel very comfortable with a team that size. Now that I'm here, the work that I'm doing is broadly based around kind of, Four to five pillars.

So our guiding documents is the Asia Pacific Strategy, which the government renewed and refreshed last year in October, and that guides us in the work that we do. So, economics, so promoting Ireland's interests and objectives in the economic realm and Then community, so supporting our community and providing services to them.

The promotion of Irish culture. We do some work around the values space as well. And then we also obviously develop our relationship at the high levels with governments and senior officials.

[00:57:22] Colin: And you have Macau as well. So do you go over to Macau a bit or not?

[00:57:26] Jennifer: I have to say I've been to Macau and I've had my meetings with the Commissioner and the Chief Executive there. We have a very small community in Macau and I am definitely looking forward to kind of increasing my visits over there. My colleagues have visited also, but because it's a small Irish community and because there's slightly less opportunities for Ireland over there, I have to say I don't get over as much as I would like.

But it is on our radar and at your right. I am responsible for Macau as well and I want to give a shout out to the wonderful Irish community member called Niall Murray who's the head of the Irish Chamber of Commerce in Macau who does a great job promoting all things Ireland and Irish over there. And one of my priorities this year is to get to Macau a little bit more.

[00:58:05] Colin: It's an interesting place. Now, here in Hong Kong you look after the Irish community. Have you got a rough indication of the number of Irish people who are, let's call, residents in Hong Kong? 

[00:58:16] Jennifer: We think roughly around the 3000 mark. Previously, prior to COVID, prior to 2019, the numbers were in and around 5000 to 6000 and it was actually considered to be our largest Irish community in Asia. Between the social unrest in 2019 and COVID, people started leaving, so since then the numbers have dropped.

It's still very sizable in terms of our communities in the Asia Pacific region, or in the Asia region. In and around, as I say, the 3,000 mark, but we're hoping to get updated numbers and figures soon, and we'll see what that looks like. But regardless, it's still a considerable community, and we do our best to support them.

[00:58:52] Colin: Now, one area which lets, since we're, it's on Law More and a little bit of 

the law. Irish people who get into 

trouble. I mean, 

I'll tell you a little story. One of my 

first jobs when I came 

to Hong Kong, I was very fortunate. 

I had a reasonable 

relationship 

with the 

American consulate. 

And then 

you had the great ships coming 

in, the aircraft carriers and the Navy.

And of course you had the British Navy here. And that led to, how could 

I say it? Some interesting fights or issues that happened, and then I was sort of acting for them in court 

the next day, and 

in the consulate you would find legal representation. Now, do you have an issue with Irish people getting themselves into 

trouble in hong kong?

Or are you all so well behaved, impeccably behaved, no Irish person would ever get into any trouble? 

[00:59:39] Jennifer: Exactly, and we are perfect human beings in every way. And we would never get into any trouble. Well, listening to that, I certainly haven't seen or heard of anything like people getting into fights, I'll tell you that much.

No, I think, do you know, look, the demographic of the Irish community here is that it's all professionals, right? So you're looking at people in finance, you're looking at lawyers, you're looking at teachers, things like that. So it's people who are living kind of normal lives, very rarely getting into trouble, very rarely needing our assistance, thank goodness, touch wood.

And what we do have when we have consular cases, it tends to be people who are either passing through, so who are a little bit vulnerable, maybe they're unwell, and maybe it's people who get into accidents and their family are at home and the family contact us because they can't contact them directly, whatever it might be.

But generally speaking, actually, very, very rarely do we find people getting into trouble in the way that they need legal assistance. And I think the reason for that is because of language. So when I was in Bangkok, our consular assistance team was, there were four people dedicated to that alone.

I mean, there's a lot of consular work in Bangkok. Because people who are there, like culturally and linguistically, if you get into trouble, it's quite hard to communicate and it's quite hard to find your way. Because a lot of people in Thailand don't speak English the same way as they would in Hong Kong.

So here, we definitely don't get called in for things as much as I think we would do otherwise. And also, because we're so far away, I would say that there aren't a huge amount of Irish tourists coming here for long periods of time, right? So there are people who are stopping over in Hong Kong for a few days, maybe on their way to Australia or New Zealand or somewhere else in the region, but we're not getting people here for a two week holiday or a one month holiday who are finding themselves, in fights or getting in the wrong side of the law.

[01:01:23] Colin: I also know you are very efficient, your consulate here, because passports, I've always had to sign I have very good friends of mine who fall in love, marry, and their wives then become Irish.

I have to sort of sign all the forms do the certification. And then I get a phone call saying, did you certify that particular person? So I enjoy that. Now, your part here in Hong Kong, we are one country. 

Greater China. We are a very small part. Tell us your relationship with your colleagues in the mainland, as to the embassy up in Beijing, and what do you do? 

[01:01:58] Jennifer: So obviously we have our embassy and our ambassador is in Beijing.

Actually, our ambassador from China. Who had been there for the previous number of years, dr. Anne Derwin has just left to go and be our ambassador in The Hague. She'll be sorely missed. We had the brief but very happy year whereby there were three female heads of mission in China. So myself, the ambassador, and our consul general in Shanghai, who was Wendy Dorman Smith, who's also gone.

 That was a great moment. But Dr. Ed Irwin is gone now and C. G. Wendy Smith has moved on to be our ambassador in Croatia. And so They have been replaced by Dr. Nicholas O'Brien, who's our new ambassador in Beijing, and Mr. David Murphy, who's our CG now in Shanghai. So the MCEF is up there in Beijing.

They obviously take the lead on all our political engagement with China. Ireland, as you all know, subscribes to the One China policy, and we support the one country, two systems. so our relationship with Beijing is that it's the same as Shanghai. To be honest, we're, we're autonomous. So my direct line manager is the ambassador.

But we report back into Dublin individually. And so obviously, with everybody kind of has eyes on how that works or on everything that's going back. So we work very closely with them, particularly as well on culture. We try and share some some cultural programs if we can. So if there's an Irish musician or an Irish artist or something coming into China, and certainly with visits, ministerial visits.

So for example, St. Patrick's day this year, we had the minister for finance, Mr. Michael McGrath, he came in to China for St. Patrick's day and visited all three cities. So we cooperate very, very closely and we work very closely with the embassy in Beijing and with the CG in Shanghai. 

[01:03:33] Colin: Now taking that to Hong Kong obviously it's very, very important to enhance business relationships between Ireland and between Hong Kong. I understand you did meet with the financial secretary. Are you able to tell us a little bit about that and how you're trying to enhance the relationship with the financial secretary and with the business development?

[01:03:51] Jennifer: Absolutely, I mean, there are so many opportunities here in Hong Kong, so the first and the biggest I think really is in the finance sector. So as I said, there are a lot of Irish professionals working in the finance sector, particularly in funds.

Now I'll caveat this by saying I am not a finance expert in any way. You'll forgive me if I'm not using the right lingo, the right jargon. But there are opportunities between Hong Kong and Ireland in finance. And I'm delighted to have the finance minister here earlier this year.

That was great. Great to create a good momentum. And so when I met with the financial secretary, we discussed the possibility in broad terms of kind of deepening and increasing our cooperation. So what that looks like really is trying to get more visitors from Ireland over to Hong Kong in terms of whether it's senior officials, whether it's ministers.

We used to in the past, we have had ministerial participation in the Asian Financial Forum. I personally would love to see that again. It's hard to make any promises because, as you may be aware, we have an election coming up in Ireland, a general election, and so depending on when that falls, it might be difficult to get ministerial visits around the time

We definitely see a lot of opportunities here. I'd love to get more visitors in and see how we can strengthen those relationships even further, whether it's participation in the Asia Financial Forum. An area that I'm also really interested in is women in finance, and I would love to kind of merge my interest in gender issues, there are so many women CEOs in banking, so many women in banking in general here. So what can we learn from that? And then we have some things in Ireland, so for example, there's the 30 percent Club. So the 30 percent Club is an organisation that's worldwide that aims to see 30 percent of all boards of Corporate bodies being women.

So Ireland is now at 40%. Hong Kong is only at 19%. But I would love to see how if there's anything that Ireland can do to share lessons learned or to cooperate on that front. So that kind of women in finance area is something that's of real interest to me. And I think there's opportunities there to strengthen relationships. 

[01:05:40] Colin: And also, I think, another interesting area is obviously, Ireland, Brexit, and the opportunities that Ireland can offer to hong Kong people within direct business relationships within Ireland and the ability, like being UK, I can have no issues getting into Ireland because as a right, I can go and live in Ireland.

[01:06:01] Jennifer: Absolutely, that's the common travel area. Yep. 

[01:06:04] Colin: Which makes life so persuading people to go to your holidays in Ireland. It's far easier than going now, with all the difficulties with Shenaghan and British passports and brexit as, well.

So Ireland has so much to offer, in countryside. The next Ryder Cup is going to be in Ireland, and the golfing, and a lot of people can really understand what a beautiful place it is to go on holiday and vacationing. So promoting Ireland is also part of your job, I suspect. 

[01:06:29] Jennifer: Absolutely, that's a huge part of my job. And thank you for bringing that up in terms of how beautiful Ireland is because I absolutely agree.

First thing I want to say, you mentioned Brexit there and I want to be really clear, even though we might talk about opportunities, Brexit was bad. We think Brexit was bad. We didn't like Brexit. It was not good for the UK, not good for Britain, not good for Ireland, not good for you, not good for anyone.

And if we could turn back time and do it again. We would love that and to see a different outcome, but here we are. So we have to change a negative into a positive and try and find the opportunities there for Ireland. And as you say, we do have opportunities. So Ireland is now the only English speaking common law country in the EU.

And any Hong Konger who wants to come and do business in Ireland, anyone from China who wants to come and do business in Ireland, you have access to the single market, which is a market of 500 million people. So unrestricted tariff free access. We also have, in terms of business and doing business in Ireland, we have a young, highly educated workforce.

We have an incredible environment and infrastructure for doing business with competitive tax rates. We have an excellent education to industry pipeline. We have an amazing story to tell. Obviously, I think a lot of people know that we have done an incredible job in attracting FDI to Ireland and that's one of our strong suits and we have transformed the Irish economy over the last 50 

[01:07:48] Colin: Well, Dublin Is booming from what I've been told that Dublin is a city not recognizable what it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, with all the opportunities and many people like the big firms, the big high tech, Apple have all their... 

[01:08:02] Jennifer: All of the headquarters, all of the big high tech companies and social media companies. So like Apple, Intel, Dell Then all the pharma companies, Allergen, pfizer, all of them, all based in Ireland. And financial institutions, huge amounts of them based in Ireland, so the business environment is there, everything is there for you if you want to come and do business in Ireland.

And then, as you mentioned, along with that, it's a beautiful country. As you say, you can go and play golf, you can go down the Wild Atlantic Way, which is what we call the West of Ireland and the routes down the West of Ireland. Beautiful Atlantic rugged coastline. One thing that I always think that Hong Kongers would like about Ireland is that there's very few people in the West of Ireland.

It's quite remote. I remember going on a road trip and driving for hours and not passing one other car, not a single car. Passed a few hikers, but nobody for hours. And I think that's something that you can't find in a lot of places. Certainly not in most places in Hong Kong, so we have an awful lot to offer as a country, and I think in terms of Brexit and taking the opportunities of Brexit as a positive, one of those things is that what we promote as, we're the gateway to Europe.

[01:09:06] Colin: well, I think you are indeed. And what is also interesting, here in Hong Kong, there's many associated bodies for the Irish community, particularly the St. Patrick's society. I have been known to go once some of the years to the St. Paddy's Ball. And I remember even being English and Jewish, they let me in.

A lot of my friends were there. And the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Chamber of Commerce are both Big, big institutions here in hong Kong. So they must take a lot of your time to assist them helping promoting them and promoting Ireland within the Hong Kong community. 

[01:09:39] Jennifer: And I have to say they are, honestly, they are the absolute backbone of the Irish community here and they make our lives of the consulate so much easier because honestly, they do so much promotion of Ireland and they themselves are ambassadors for Ireland in the way that they engage in Hong Kong.

They live here, they have the institutional knowledge and memory. They do incredible work. And really, It's an honour and a privilege for us to be able to support them in their work to promote Ireland and to work to assist the Irish community. So the Government of Ireland, we have a dedicated funding stream called the Emigrant Support Programme, which is available for Irish Community Groups overseas, all around the world, to apply for, to assist with their work in promoting Ireland.

I think we're one of the only countries who has this, and Irish Community Groups are welcome to apply every year for that funding. And I know that our groups have done that in the past and some of them are currently in receipt of that at the moment and we're really really proud to support them through the funding but also through our work, our engagement.

Actually I'm having dinner tonight with a lot of Irish community stakeholders and I know the St Pat's Society just had an AGM and a change of president and we'll be working with the Chamber of Commerce hopefully on the Irish Whiskey Association visit and the GAA are still really active and despite the fact that with COVID there were very few new people coming in.

I'm amazed that they've managed to really keep going, to keep their numbers up, and actually the Chamber tripled their membership last year alone. So they're doing incredible work. 

[01:11:07] Colin: Chambers of Commerce are so important. It's not only yourselves, the french, the German. I mean, it's big. And as I said, one of my previous guests was the Egyptian Consulate General, and they have a big community here. So the intermingling. Do you meet a lot of your diplomatic corps? You know them all? You all get together? 

[01:11:25] Jennifer: We do, we do. So obviously on EU level, we have our coordinations and then at national days, we see each other and yeah, we do, we see each other around.

[01:11:35] Colin: You're very busy, and you have all your official duties. Do you have any time to explore Hong Kong? Any things here that you've really liked? 

[01:11:41] Jennifer: I love walking around. So I always say this, and I think this kind of divides people, but I love the built environment of Hong Kong. I know a lot of people love hiking and the parks and the mountains. I actually love the buildings. I love walking around. I love looking up. I love looking at the skyline.

I love the skyline at night time. I love being out on the harbour when I'm lucky enough to get out on a boat. It's only been a handful of times since I arrived, but for me, the built environment, the engineering and the architecture is beyond belief. It is just, it boggles my mind that humanity has built such an incredible landscape.

It's just incredible. I love it. It's so unique

[01:12:19] Colin: I suspect one reason why you like it so much is the great rich history between the Irish and Hong Kong. And if you're walking around the streets, you have the streets of many of the ex governors of Hong Kong. The Irish, Bowen Road Hennessy Road, Macdonald Road, Robertson Road, the names of ex-governors. 

[01:12:37] Jennifer: Yeah, huge rich history of Irish people here throughout the decades, throughout the centuries. So I, I feel like when Irish people come here, there's something visual that they can feel at home.

[01:12:46] Colin: Yeah, and also the very famous chief Justice Michael Hogan was Irish. So it is a huge amount of culture and history between Ireland and Hong Kong. As you said to us, you talk about your all the bilateral meetings, maintaining relationships, but there is a sort of. elephant in the room. Hong Kong has gone through some difficult times. We call it our troubles. Troubles, obviously, in northern Ireland, of which every Irish person is fully aware of. Does that resonate a little bit with you? How do you feel about that? 

[01:13:19] Jennifer: I think we can look at kind of most societies and at some point, whether it's a city, a region, a country whatever it might be, most societies, most places have gone through difficult times. I definitely feel for Hong Kong. I feel that, you know, when you go through some, a very difficult time, there is a need for reconciliation.

And obviously that's something that's happened in Northern Ireland. Obviously the contexts for Hong Kong and Northern Ireland are entirely different, completely different. Geographically, historically, even the content of what's happened, but just that broader sense of having a time of serious disruption, of difficulty when people are not seeing eye to eye, and then having to restore some sort of normality after that on a very kind of personal level, and on a very civic level, in terms of recovering from kind of a traumatic experience.

And I think that does resonate, and that resonates with us in Ireland, but it resonates all around the world, I think, too.

[01:14:17] Colin: Finally, it's well documented that Hong Kong has faced these problems in recent years. There's always geopolitical tensions with post pandemic recovery. Your opinion as how you see our city's future?

[01:14:31] Jennifer: It's a question I've been asked and I think it's a question that is on the lips of so many people in Hong Kong. I think it's a really important question. And I think it's a question that people are looking to each other, they're looking to the government.

They're looking to civil society. They're looking internationally and we're all trying to come up with some comprehensive answer. I've heard so many viewpoints from so many different people, but to be honest, one of the things that sticks out to me when I speak to Hong Kongers, people who've been here a long time, is the resilience of Hong Kong.

That over the years, Hong Kong has gone through so many different phases, so many ups, so many downs. There have been so many times in the past when people have said, that's it, Hong Kong's over. We're done for now, whatever it might be because of, I'm not saying that I don't think that Hong Kong has changed or is changing, it is, and I think cities, they are living, vibrant places, they're always changing.

But for me, my hope for Hong Kong is that resilience kicks in and that it bounces back. So in 5, 10, 20 years time, Hong Kong might not look the same as it does now, perhaps, but it will still be successful. It will still feel like it represents the people who are living here in terms of what they want and that in the future it will still be home to a very diverse and international community of people.

That's my hope for the future. 

[01:15:49] Colin: Well I entirely agree with you as I keep on saying time and time again, this is my home. I've been here 40 plus years and I want to carry on living here, retiring here as well. Jennifer, it's been fabulous chatting with you. Thank you so much for joining us on Law and More.

[01:16:05] Jennifer: You're more than welcome. Thank you, Colin.