Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for having missed the presentation, I had a meeting but was able to watch some of it in my office. The Centre for Cross Border Studies has done significant work but sometimes people do not see it. A project may take ten to 15 years to come to fruition. I concur with the points made by my colleagues. We have failed on the education front and only 1% of the student population attend college in the South, when there so many opportunities for them to do so. We need to work much harder on cross-Border co-operation on education and I would like to hear the delegates views on that.

We are working on a report on cross-Border smuggling. Cross-Border smuggling must be addressed in terms of cross-Border co-operation. It is worrying that almost 25% of fuel is laundered. I do not think we fully appreciate the scale of the problem.

Another issue is smuggling. Some €14 million worth of cigarettes were seized in Drogheda. This is an issue that must be tackled. Will the delegates comment on how we might tackle the problem of smuggling?