Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's comments and thank him for his proactivity on questions from the Dáil and Seanad on this important funding stream. I have lived through all of the peace programmes and INTERREG programmes. Indeed, when INTERREG was announced, many in the Border area wondered if it was an Easter egg. There was a great deal of difficulty in trying to understand what the programme was. Thanks be to God, it was an Easter egg and a golden one at that, not just for the Border region, but indeed for myriad projects which have benefitted people right across the country from North-South interaction, whether in universities in Cork, Dublin or elsewhere. The country has benefitted greatly from it. I contend, however, that there is a major vacuum here albeit I welcome the commitment of the Government up to 2020. I took the liberty of writing to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who confirmed for me on 12 December that he wished to affirm his Government's commitment to Northern Ireland's hard-gained political stability and the continuation of the programme, which is welcome in itself. I hope that will be honoured.

I have said time out of number since I entered the Dáil that for too long communities turned their backs on each other. As a result of INTERREG and the peace programmes, communities have collaborated, faced each other and found commonality of purpose. That did not happen in the Border region for many years and required the aid of the EU whether it was students benefitting from the funds in attending colleges across the island, research or the collaboration of local authorities. That could be in difficulty post-Brexit. It is the uncertainty I want to come back to and the worry. While there is a commitment to 2020, people are afraid to plan post that date. It is dragging out the uncertainty as to whether these worthwhile projects from which communities have benefitted greatly will continue. I would like the Minister to comment on that.

We had the SEUPB in here and its representatives indicated, as has the Minister, that they were looking at mechanisms whereby funding is provided to non-EU countries by the EU. The EU was set up to ensure that peace continued. The peace process is probably the greatest peace process in Europe since the Second World War. Will the EU see it as an exemplar of how a peace process should operate and guarantee the funding into the future? The Minister referred to various programmes. I could list a lot more, including the Atlantic programmes and other European programmes for which people have planned. There would be a serious risk to the peace process if these programmes were not followed through and if the EU does not find a special mechanism to ensure that, regardless of Brexit, these programmes continue beyond 2020.