Ms Ruth Taillon:

I have to make a plea to think of how integrated the economy in the North is, particularly in respect of agriculture but also in respect of the universities which will be very much out in the cold. On the assumption that we will have some version of Brexit, hopefully we will not but it looks increasingly likely, one thing the Irish Government could do in the diplomatic discussions is consider the particular impact of the loss of EU funding, not just in economic terms but in terms of the isolation factor, of having our links to our European neighbours cut off. We were considering some of the possibilities for potential replacement funding streams or ways to go about this. It depends very much on the UK Government's attitude to putting money into the budgets. The European neighbourhood partnership initiative has been shaped very much like a Brexit for external borders. That could have great potential if the UK and Ireland came together and set up a programme which not only allowed us to co-operate with Wales, as the southern side of the Border has done with an EU initiative for inter-regional co-operation, INTERREG, programme. We have been able to bring Scotland in to work with the rest of the island. Given the new circumstances and the political upheaval we would like to have some version of a programme that allowed us to reach out to other sectors of the UK. INTERREG in particular has been innovative and allowed the universities get in. There has also been the peace programme. If there was some way of keeping the Horizon 2020 and the financial instrument supporting environmental, nature conservation and climate action projects throughout the EU, the LIFE programmes going between these islands could be very important for us, whichever way Brexit goes. We are considering it from the point of view of the social impact, on jobs and so on, and of the relationships we will lose through being cut off from EU civic society networks. People not involved in them do not know about them but they have had valuable impacts on everybody on this island.