Mr. Glyn Roberts:

To take the point about InterTradeIreland, Retail Excellence Ireland and the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association have been having a dialogue about how we can develop and promote the retail sector on this island and on what are the policy challenges to retail on both sides of the Border. The dialogue is on how can we develop the retail sector on the island of Ireland and on how can we make the island of Ireland recognised as a major international retail destination. One initiative being considered by our two organisations is the setting up of a North-South retail forum between ourselves, which would engage with InterTradeIreland and the Administrations in Belfast and Dublin to consider what are the challenges in that regard and how we can engage with them. This is an initiative that we, as two business organisations, are taking because in retail terms, there is no such thing as a border. Shoppers will go wherever there is a bargain and that is the reality. The interesting development this Christmas was that although we normally have lots of Southern shoppers coming north into Belfast, this year it was the other way around to some degree. I was talking to retailers in Dublin who had an enormous number of Northerners, including people from Belfast, who were shopping. We must try to establish how we can develop all of that and we are at the very early stages of so doing. I have had an initial meeting with the new chief executive of InterTradeIreland, and obviously we are at the early stages of this initiative. However, its establishment is one of our projects for this year.

In respect of Belfast City Council, the Lord Mayor hosted a meeting last week of all the different agencies and key players in the Lord Mayor's Parlour. We envisage that this campaign fund will be administered by the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau. The bureau will be the lead organisation in this regard and we expect that Belfast City Council also will have a role in funding that campaign. We have had that engagement and obviously it was helpful, in addition, that Belfast City Council struck a zero rate. We are having that dialogue and what we really are trying to do is to bring solutions. We can dwell on this problem all we like but we must focus on solutions. Hopefully, this fund will start to deliver results in the short term and get us that increased footfall we need.