Minutes by Nicholas Nolan and Maurice Moynihan
'Trade with countries under Communist rule'
(Confidential)

As a result of the consideration given by successive Governments, since June 1948, to the question of trading with countries under Communist control, the present position is that

1. private firms and individuals may trade with Communist countries in any commodity other than strategic goods (in practice, scrap metals); and, in connexion with such private trading, commercial representatives from Communist countries are permitted to enter Ireland if they have already established relations with Irish firms and if there is no political objection to them;

   and

2. State agencies have no commercial relations with Communist countries; Government officials at home and abroad refrain from contacts with official representatives of Communist Governments; and officials of Communist Governments are not granted visas to enter Ireland.

2. In a joint memorandum submitted to the Government by the Ministers for Industry and Commerce and External Affairs on the 18th September 1954,¹ the Ministers recommended that, in addition, the Government should agree that:-
   1. such contacts between Irish officials and officials of Communist countries as may be necessary in the interests of Irish trade should be permitted;
   2. such informal arrangements (but not formal trade agreements) as may be necessary for the promotion of Irish exports should be made with official representatives of Communist Governments or representatives of Communist State-trading agencies; and
   3. subject to necessary security precautions, and on condition that no undue publicity is given thereto, official representatives of Communist Governments should be permitted to enter Ireland in those cases where their presence is essential to the conclusion of an individual commercial transaction.

   The memorandum intimated that the Minister for Agriculture was opposed to the proposal at (c) and that the Minister for Finance reserved his position as regards the recommendations as a whole.

3. The matter came up before the Government at a meeting held on the 28th September 1954 and, following a fairly lengthy discussion, the memorandum was withdrawn from the Agenda. The formal position, therefore, is that the proposals mentioned in paragraph 2 above were not approved by the Government. In the course of the discussion, however, a Minister suggested — and the suggestion was not disapproved — that the proposals might serve, very informally, as a guide for future action by Ministers in considering any particular cases, involving trading with countries under Communist rule, that might arise. No record of this suggestion has previously been made in this Department.
4. The proposals made in the joint memorandum were put forward on the grounds that it was desirable to remove certain anomalies in the present position of our trading relations with countries under Communist rule and to enable advantage to be taken of the possibility of increased exports to those countries which had been opened up in recent times.

[handwritten note]

The foregoing note was prepared on the instructions of the Taoiseach. At today’s Government meeting, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Finance agreed that paragraph 3 of the note represents correctly what occurred at the Government meeting held on the 28th September, 1954. I handed a copy of the note to the Minister for Agriculture, at his request, at the same time inviting the Minister’s attention to its confidential nature.