Well we sent Snelgrove over to NI and he very quickly became a first teamer for Crusaders, who are in the European places in that league. Chadwick did well over there too. I know NI is slightly weaker than the Irish league, but if you flip it and look at players like Jordan Flores who looked nothing like being able to break into our League One side despite having been a regular for Dundalk, I think our promising youngsters would probably do pretty well. Not all of our development squad are going to become Football League players, as much as we'd love them to. You only have to look at Ahmed Salam, who was looking really promising and did alright at Linfield, but then couldn't find a club for love nor money upon his release and has ended up at Alfreton and has been in and out of their side, which is worrying because they're mid table in the National League North.
The LOI is a decent standard and would offer proper men's football, an affiliate there is good but it is worth pointing out that it still takes 5 continuous years to earn Irish citizenships so there's no quick route to a work permit there and it's unlikely that any player would be picked for their country playing in the LOI, even the Irish ones tend to be few and far between. Serbia would be a better bet if we sign foreign players; it's not as local (obviously), but citizenship only takes three years (just ask Evandro) and the league is ranked 11th, whereas the LOI is ranked 36th (below Latvia, Kosovo, Liechtenstein and Azerbaijan) so you're more likely to get Work Permit points.