Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator O'Reilly for his questions. As a Border politician, he is particularly conscious of the North-South issues. To be very clear, we are exploring, and will be proactive in exploring, every possible opportunity to do more on a North-South basis. I have had many interesting political meetings on this. I had a very good meeting with the leader of the SDLP, Colum Eastwood, on some of the practical issues. I have met my Northern Ireland counterpart, Ms Dodds. I have also met Professor Ian Greer, the president of Universities Ireland.

Universities Ireland is an important vehicle because it takes the politics out of it. This is the representative body of all of the universities on the island of Ireland. In the current political climate in which we live - we have got to be realistic about that - that is a much more pragmatic way of achieving progress. We should ask the educational experts what more should we be doing and we, as politicians, then support them in terms of that.

I and the Taoiseach expect to be in a position to show good faith on a number of North-South initiatives over the summer months as well to try to build good faith through that shared island unit and I look forward to coming back with more details of that. For example, I note the relationship between Dundalk Institute of Technology, IT, which is not too far from Senator O'Reilly, and Queens University and others. There is nothing to stop those institutions, and similarly, Letterkenny and Magee, today deciding to do more together informally and I am certainly trying to encourage that. We will not leave Dundalk IT behind just because it was a little late in identifying someone to partner with. If we can get a technological university for the north east, that will provide real opportunities for an educational and investment powerhouse for the north east that will also be able to interact across the Border.

We must look at the opportunities in further education for cross-Border co-operation. These are even more plentiful. They are under-explored and under-harnessed. The education and training boards - there is an excellent one I know well in Senator O'Reilly's region - can be partnering more on skills provision programmes. Why cannot we have people taking digital literacy classes, regardless of which side of the Border they live, jointly? This has to be about building trust and knowledge of each other as people. That is how one brings people closer together. That is how one embeds peace. Further education has a massive role to play.

I am particularly excited that in the draft programme for PEACE PLUS, the special EU programmes body, we have for the first time in an application of that programme made a provision of €35 million for skills initiatives. We are not there yet. We have work to do in terms of engaging with the Department of the Economy in Northern Ireland and submitting our proposals to the Commission but we should be in a position towards the end of this year of being able to formalise a skills programme for the Border counties that I think will be able to do good work on both sides of the Border in terms of further education, training and skills provision.

On student universal support Ireland, SUSI, in case I was not clear enough, students going to Scotland can still access SUSI as well. Any Irish student going anywhere in the UK can still access SUSI. It is merely, in addition to that, that the Scottish Government has also extended use of its loan facility, which I appreciate.

I am pleased Senator O'Reilly brought up the issue of Erasmus for students in Northern Ireland. It is not a green or orange issue. It is open to anybody living in Northern Ireland regardless of whether he or she considers himself or herself Irish, British, Northern Irish, or British and Irish. It is available for everybody and anybody. It is fulfilling a commitment of Government and the Oireachtas that we would not leave Northern Ireland students behind regardless of Brexit.

On the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, all I can say to Senator O'Reilly from my conversations with officials as recently as today is that this seems to be going well. It is going well through a tapestry of different ways of doing it. In the absence of having an overall EU framework or a derogation for a specific British and Irish agreement, each profession has had to do it in a way that works for it. Some of it, around the safe pass in the construction industry, has required legislative change in the Oireachtas. Others have required memoranda of understanding. Some have required - the Senator referenced nursing - regulators changing their understanding of third party recognition. The Medical Council did that. That Teaching Council did that. As of today - I am touching wood because we are never complacent around this - this is working well. We have that working group, which has already met three times this year and is continuing to monitor the situation well.

Finally, on Senator O'Reilly's point on apprenticeships, I feel strongly on this. The way the Senator described the pathway for the mechanic to the PhD is exactly right; we all learn in different ways. There is a specific reference in the action plan on apprenticeships, that we published last week, for the development of cross-Border apprenticeships. That could be another way that we could extend the hand of friendship, both North-South and South-North. Apprenticeships on a cross-Border basis is a key action in the new plan.