Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the group very much for its contributions. It has made a series of recommendations and we will forward these to the current Minister, but there may be a change in that regard in a couple of weeks. Whatever is the case, we will pass them on to whomever will be in the position of responsibility with regard to North-South responsibility for evaluation. It is important to recognise the work the group is doing, not just today and yesterday, but for quite a while, including much of the preparatory work prior to institutional set-up. We do not have an institutional set-up currently, but we have a North-South interparliamentary association. Issues have been raised here in regard to education, and at the next plenary session education will be on the agenda. I understand the session will not be in public, but perhaps we should see more information come from those meetings. The report from those meetings goes to the First and Deputy First Ministers and to the Taoiseach, but perhaps groups like that here could work more closely with these institutions.

The North-South Ministerial Council will have a plenary session on 4 July and the group has said it has a close working relationship with it. The council has moved into a different space, where it is getting into the nitty-gritty and the nuts and bolts of the issues. Our Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Simon Coveney, will meet with Michelle O'Neill, Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development in Northern Ireland, and they will discuss animal welfare and issues relevant to farmers North and South, such as labelling.

We will work closely with the witnesses. They have a series of recommendations, which we will pass on. When we talk about the Border, everybody still has the mindset of a border on a map. It is a fiscal border that people see. The Border itself - the physical border - is seen by people, but the perception is more of a fiscal border that is changing and is very fluid. We must be conscious of that.

I thank the witnesses for their time. We will now suspend the meeting for a vote in the Dáil.

Sitting suspended at 11.30 a.m. and resumed at 12.10 p.m.