NICOLA Sturgeon will underline political, cultural and business links between Ireland and Scotland on a visit to Dublin tomorrow.

The First Minister will meet Taoiseach Leo Varadkar during the one day trip and also host a round-table meeting with investors at Irish Employers and Business Confederation (IBEC).

She will stress the importance of the Irish export market to Scotland, worth £1.5 billion in 2017.

The SNP leader will also attend a school which has established a project using poetry to connect young people in the Irish capital and Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire.

“Scotland is an outward-looking, welcoming, European nation that greatly values the friendship and progressive values it shares with Ireland, and we are determined that relationship will go from strength to strength,” the First Minister said ahead of the visit.

“The relationship with Ireland is of vital importance to Scotland.

“As our fifth largest export market, business and cultural links between Scotland and Ireland are very important.

“Whatever happens with Brexit, we will not allow it to damage our relationship with our closest partners and friends, and we will continue to encourage trade, inward investment and international cultural collaboration.”

The Scottish Government opened the first of five “quasi consulates” which it described as “European innovation and culture hubs” in Dublin in February 2016, which was established to deepen the relations between Ireland and Scotland.

The Dublin hub arranges and assists with trade missions, ministerial visits, and government-to-government conversations at an official level. It also links up Scottish and Irish businesses that might be interested in events or opportunities in either country. It works across a range of sectors, including financial services, arts, culture and heritage, and renewable energy and energy efficiency.

The First Minister’s visit to the Republic comes as the two pro-European nations further build on their relationship amid the Brexit turmoil.

Earlier this month Scottish Brexit Secretary Mike Russell visited Dublin to gain insight into the Republic’s Citizens’ Assembly. The assembly was established by the Irish Parliament in 2016 to deliberate on a number of issues, including gay marriage and the eighth amendment that outlawed abortion.

Last October, senator Neale Richmond, an ally of Varadkar, attended the SNP Conference in Glasgow where he told The National that Ireland would welcome an independent Scotland back into the EU.

“If the Scottish people decide they want to be independent then of course we would welcome another small independent English speaking country into the European Union,” he said.

The First Minister regularly points to the influence Ireland exerts in Europe when she makes the case for Scotland joining the EU as an independent nation.

She last made an official visit to Dublin in November 2016 where politicians in the Seanad, the Irish Parliament’ upper house, hailed her as a “shining light” across Europe and the world and pleaded with Scotland to “achieve its full potential” and become an independent nation.

They also asked what help they could give to hasten the “inevitability” of Scottish independence and poured scorn on Westminster over Brexit and what they called the “lies” of “racism” of the Leave campaign.

Senator Mark Daly said: “One hundred years ago Ireland was continuing on its long road to independence following the 1916 Rising. I hope Scotland’s journey to independence will not take 100 years,” he said.

He asked how Ireland could help Scotland “achieve its full potential”.