Ms Margaret Urwin:

Deputy Frank Feighan asked what we could do in the future. Deputy Brendan Smith suggested what the committee can do in terms of bringing pressure to bear on the British Government to honour the Dáil motions that were passed in 2008 and 2011, which is very important. Those committee members who were on the North-South and east-west bodies, the British-Irish interparliamentary Assembly or the British-Irish Council must emphasise to their colleagues from the British side the importance of honouring and complying with these motions.

We met with the Taoiseach in July. We had sought a meeting for a long time and we got our meeting in July. He promised that he would keep raising this with the British. It probably needs to be done in a more public way to try to somehow bring more pressure. I do not think it will be done in private or in one-to-one meetings, certainly not solely anyway. Pressure has to be brought to bear. If this committee can put forward a proposal to the Government on that, it would be very welcome.

With regard to commemorations, I can assure the committee that every Deputy and Senator will get an invitation to the 40th anniversary commemoration this year. Senator Mary White mentioned the fact the Irish people are not engaging with it. Sometimes the media does not even cover it. I have on occasion rung RTE to say it has not even been mentioned on the day of the anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, even though a press release will have gone into RTE the previous day. We are dependent on the media to let the general public know about the commemorations but, hopefully, this year being the 40th anniversary, that will not present such a problem.

In regard to funding, I was asked why our funding was withdrawn. We do not know why our funding was withdrawn. The Irish Government had funded us for a decade, as I said, and the Barron report had been held and so on. We presume it was because the Government felt it had done enough and had given enough money, and it withdrew it.