Mr. Máirtín Ó Muilleoir:

I will bat the issue of the €120 million back to Deputy Breathnach respectfully and softly. We have done all our work. The letters of offer are ready to go. We in the North can do no more. The Minister for Public Expenditure and reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, and I have met on these issues and I have met the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan on some of the issues. They know where I stand on it. As representatives for Cavan and Louth, the Deputies here will make their views known. While I am not here to ascribe blame to anyone, they are logjams. One example is the Shared Waters Enhancement and Loughs Legacy, SWELL, project in Carlingford Lough and Lough Foyle, which has been there since July. We want them to be released. It is a hiatus that none of us want to see.

I cannot elaborate any more. We have done our work. There is €120 million there. The groups we have spoken about are exemplary in the work they do. I met members of the Higher Attainment through Cross-Border Hubs, HATCH, group which works in Cavan getting ethnic minorities into entrepreneurship, during the past period of our PEACE programme. These are all INTERREG projects which are ready to go. I know the Deputies will follow it up tomorrow and we are doing what we can.

Regarding North-South co-operation and the Dublin-Belfast corridor, it dismays me that the idea conceived by Sir George Quigley has been moribund for a while. The most proactive project I saw around the Border region was the Louth-Newry and Mourne memorandum of understanding. I would like more action behind it. As the representatives of the Border regions know, and as our friends in InterTradeIreland always tell us, while the Border region is on the periphery of two economies, in an all-island economy it is at the centre of the economy. As I say to my Unionist colleagues, this is not a political point. One can support an all-island economy for the job and wealth creation benefits, not for the politics.

Regardless of what happens, we need to step up, especially regarding Cavan and Donegal. I am a big fan of the north-west gateway initiative. We really need to step up the economic work along the corridor. Dundalk had a jobs blow recently. There is no reason that there should not be intense activity along the corridor between two of the youngest cities in Europe, Dublin and Belfast.