Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. Gabhaim buíochas freisin leis an Aire as ucht an cur i láthair atá tugtha aige.

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this issue with the Minister. Views may differ but they are part of a constructive discussion to improve the project and feed into the committee's report. We have had a great opportunity to discuss this matter with a large number of academics and trade union activists, etc. They have fed information to the committee on all-island trade. The Minister might give his perspective on some of the issues they raised. One of the issues raised today was that the Border region has suffered from peripherality, rural demographics, location and from being a policy fault line. Peripherality and rural demographics are not for us to fix. However, the policy fault line and how it functions were identified as problems. It was stated that they have led in the direction of dependency, both North and South.

Another problem mentioned was that with the problem of the recent troubles having largely been resolved, there was not the same level of urgency around cross-Border affairs. That was a perspective expressed by an academic and I would like to hear the Minister's view on same.

The view was that there was more engagement with these issues 20 years ago than today.

The Minister mentioned the statistics for trade North and South. A statistic we received today was that, when compared with the total value of merchandise exports from the Republic of Ireland, manufactured goods exports dropped from 2.1% to 1.4% between 1996 and 2014, although there has been a modest trend upwards since 2009. Therefore there has been a fall overall in terms of trade from the South to the North. It was also mentioned that there was a lack of data on cross-Border service trade. In that significant sector of service, we did not have the measurement tools to work that out. The tragedy of industry in Ireland was discussed earlier by Dr. Tom Healy, as well as the policy dysfunction North and South. It was stated that recent initiatives by IBEC and CBI had resulted in a massive increase in interest on the part of cross-Border firms, almost despite policy development. We heard some very simple things. For example, we heard from one academic that the Dublin to Belfast train does not arrive in Belfast until 9.45 a.m. Although this is not specifically in the remit of the Minister, a tourism body was created that did not have a genuine strategic synergy. The reason for the report is that there was more engagement 20 years ago, as well as the reduction in focus currently and the shocking levels of unemployment, poverty and emigration.

InterTradeIreland, which the Minister mentioned, is a fantastic organisation. I worked on one of those projects discussed by the Minister, but it has suffered severe cuts. We had recommendations from the North-South Retail Forum, which was set up by Retail Excellence Ireland and its Northern counterpart. It considered that a North-South structure for retail was necessary. Its understanding, from the Minister's perspective, was that it was not necessary and that there could be a discussion about it. I would like to get an understanding of the Department's view, given that everybody believes that North-South co-operation is a good thing. Everybody speaks of the benefits of an all-Ireland economy as having positive outputs. A large number of those who have engaged in the process so far mentioned that we are retrenching rather than progressing on the issues of an all-Ireland economy, all-Ireland trade, developing those synergies and the practical elements of working together with our Northern counterparts. What is the Minister's view on their engagement and how can we solve this? Is it just inertia or, as one of the witnesses said, is it that governments are fire-fighting due to the crisis? Has it fallen down the list of priorities, or there is something worse involved?

In regard to the Border development zone, there is a serious problem. As we may have more time than expected due to the lack of participants, I will leave it at that, and perhaps I might be able to speak again.