Dr. Anthony Soares:

I thank the Deputy for that question. In answering his question I will also refer to Senator Feighan's comments that Brexit means Brexit but that we do not know what Brexit really means. In our work, together with our co-operation with other organisations, we are not waiting to find out what Brexit means. We are planning with other organisations for the various scenarios and trying to come up with proposals as to how we might take matters forward, which includes funding that is currently received from the EU which supports many community organisations, North and South of the Border. It is not only a question of the number of jobs involved, and accurate figures for the number of jobs involved is very difficult to ascertain. We have not undertaken that, but with respect to the area North of the Border, I would point the Deputy in the direction of the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action, NICVA, which undertook a survey that came up with some figures, but I would consider these carefully.

It is not only a question of the jobs of the people working in these organisations that are currently in receipt of EU funding, it is that many of these organisations provide vital services to the communities in which they work. It is an issue not only for the people who work in these organisations but for the services they provide, which are vital in areas such as youth unemployment, drug addiction, women in vulnerable situations and working with women to bring into the jobs sector. They do all sorts of work that is vital to their communities. If a loss of funding is not replaced in a sustainable manner as we move forward, the issue will be not only the loss of the number of jobs of people directly working in these organisations but the loss of services to the communities they serve. Even if they are temporarily lost and at a later point money is found to provide these services, the people who worked in these organisations, who had skills and a knowledge of the communities in which they worked, will have gone and we would be starting again from scratch, which would be a very difficult task. It would be sad if that were to happen.

We in the Centre for Cross Border Studies are focusing on cross-Border co-operation or wider North-South co-operation. We have come up with suggestions on how we can take matters forward, depending on the different scenarios in terms of whether the UK continues paying into the budgets for the Structural Funds. We have proposals and I hope that those responsible will examine them seriously.