Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like Deputy McConalogue, I am not a committee member so I thank the Chairman for letting me a contribution. An excellent and constructive proposal was made by Ms Margey about dedicated Executive officers and representatives of the Departments of Transport, Tourism and Sport and Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister linking directly with the steering group of the North West Region Cross Border Group. I urge the committee to write to the two Departments and the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to ask them to provide a direct link and dedicated officers to a steering group so that the North West Region Cross Border Group could be lead on these issues. Everybody politically in the north-west region is committed to this project and has been fighting for it but I really see the North West Region Cross Border Group as the ideally placed conduit for driving this, which is why I asked the questions. We all have a job to do here in this Parliament and the North and so on but if as Ms Margey proposes, we had conduits from Departments dedicated to liaising and keeping the information flow going, that could be helpful. I am suggesting that the committee might write to the governments and endorse the proposal.