Ms Julie Sinnamon:

We have an extremely close working relationship with Invest Northern Ireland and Intertrade Ireland.

We would probably meet a couple of times a year, but those are formal meetings where we exchange information. The key interaction happens at the executive level. What we have in the Republic is critical mass in terms of running programmes to develop our companies. In the North, they do not have the group of companies with the critical mass to run the types of programmes that we run. All of our programmes for developing our client base in terms of leadership and management development are open to companies on both sides of the Border. Effectively, at one stage there were small numbers of companies participating. Those numbers have increased significantly and we share all of that information. It is a completely collaborative relationship between the two agencies.

I was saying earlier that, recently, Invest Northern Ireland did tender for a programme and it was granted to Dublin City University, DCU. That probably would not have happened before they started working with us, with the likes of DCU with their programme. There is a high level, and out of those programmes the companies form relationships and do business together.

One of the sectors where the highest growth is happening at present is food. Lakeland made an announcement last week that at least 50% of the milk from Monaghan and Lakeland is coming from north of the Border. The investment we are making in companies here is having a positive impact on the community in Northern Ireland and certainly that is important.

From a research and development perspective, we have been working very successfully and are probably exemplars in Europe on the seventh framework programme, FP7. We are now charged with responsibility for €1.25 billion targets for Horizon 2020. Colleagues here from Enterprise Ireland working on that agenda would be collaborating with Invest Northern Ireland in terms of sharing what we are doing and trying to collaborate cross-Border with a view to doing things together on that side. Again, there is a very open approach to it.

In terms of the international education side, that is an area where there is opportunity for us to do more. Through the UK Trade and Investment, UKTI, Invest Northern Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, EI, engagement, we are constantly working on a number of programmes. We had the Dubai visit last week, which was three groups of companies. The biggest event we run, every two years, is MedinIreland, where we bring in 300 or 400 buyers from overseas into Ireland to look at the very strong cluster of medtech early-stage companies that we have. This year, for the first time, Invest Northern Ireland clients will participate in that in the convention centre with our companies.

There is a very strong positive working relationship between the two sides. We do not see ourselves as competing against them. It is probably in many ways more one-way traffic. There is more to be gained from Northern Ireland collaborating with us. Yesterday, I was in touch with Invest Northern Ireland companies who are trying to access the North and asking them could they use their contacts to get companies here into Northern Ireland to do business. There is a very strong positive view.

On the issue of low wages, it has more impact in some sectors than others. In some of the lower-paid jobs within the food sector, it would be more of a problem than in some of the more high-tech areas where people are paid well beyond the minimum wage. One of the issues we are working on with all our companies - we are working with about 300 companies per annum - is the whole lean agenda, which is about trying to take costs out of the system and be more productive with whatever staff is there, to be able to get better productivity through the companies and be able then to deal with wage rates in that way. The whole lean agenda is very important in terms of addressing that issue.