Dr. Conor Patterson:

There are aggregate figures for movement of people between the jurisdictions. The number of people who are registered to pay tax in one or other jurisdiction because they are cross-Border workers is somewhere around 46,000. There are figures that have been used in the media. I do not know if they are defensible or not but they suggest there are about 12 million movements per annum. That includes shoppers and people travelling back and forth socially, that is journey movements. We do not have any disaggregated figures from Newry. First Derivatives is a major employer in Newry which now employs 1,700 people from its Newry base. It operates in centres around the globe and 60% of its recruits are from the Irish Republic. It recruits from across the island. The talent pool, as it describes it and as Mr. Michael Blaney has described it, here in the Republic is very important to that company. Similarly Norbrook estimates that about 25% of its workforce comes from the Irish Republic. Employers in Dundalk are important to people from Newry who work in PayPal, Heinz and so on in Dundalk. It is a two-way movement. I do not have specific figures for Newry but we can estimate on the back of those specific examples that it is a significant number.