Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The increase in the non-pay subhead is in anticipation of the forthcoming State visit to the UK and the new consulates, such as the one in Austin, Texas.

We want to ensure the reconciliation fund is targeted in support of an agreement. We will also support the International Fund for Ireland work, which has a role to play. In last year’s European multi-annual financial framework, we secured agreement on the PEACE IV programme which will provide €150 million. We will be deciding how to target this programme over 2014.

The Government and the Northern Ireland Executive continue to support the proposal for the Narrow Water bridge project. I understand that this is now back with the local authorities for revised design work. We will have to see what the outcome of that process will be.

The honorary consuls are not paid.

It is unpaid, honorary work. They retain a portion of the visa fees they get. The Deputy asked about a particular honorary consul. I do not have the answer here but I will get it and reply to the Deputy by letter.

In respect of Deputy O'Sullivan's question about prisoners, it is fair to say that some progress has been made. Some of the people about whom we were talking in the early part of last year have been released. It is obviously something we continue to work on. Our Anglo-Irish division and the Belfast secretariat work on this issue. Our officials here and in Belfast and in London on occasions work on the issue of prisoners.

The criteria for reconciliation funds are published online and are available to all the organisations. The applications must satisfy those criteria. Some of the applications that have come in do not satisfy the criteria, which explains why they do not get through. We explain the criteria to the organisations as the need arises.

In response to Deputy Byrne, we are very conscious of the risk that any funding provided through our Department would be used to reinforce divisions. We co-ordinate very closely with other funders to ensure that funding is directed at reducing the impact of sectarianism and division. If one looks back over 2013, one can see it was the disturbances on the streets and problems over flags and parades that hit the headlines, usually where there are division issues. However, there is a considerable amount of good work being done. I met women's groups in Derry working on a cross-community basis to deal with issues relating to drug abuse and the kind of social problems that we all know about and experience in our own constituencies. A great deal of work is being done on a cross-community basis. One can see it in the work being done in the Skainos centre in east Belfast such as courses in the Irish language and Irish culture. Quite an amount of work is ongoing on a cross-community basis and we work very strongly to support that in every way we can. We are going to continue to work with the British government. I speak regularly with Theresa Villiers, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, about our work together. I spoke to her as recently as last Sunday and a few times last week. We are in regular contact with her and the Northern Ireland Executive. Deputy Crowe mentioned new initiatives on reconciliation. We launched a very exciting project recently that was hosted by Google. It involves the digitisation of First World War records for the entire island. I was pleased to launch that with the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. I thank the members of the committee who were present on that occasion.