Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On that point, there certainly is a lot of commonality in terms of what we are looking for and this committee is very cognisant of the need to hear the European voice. We did try to get someone from the EU to take part in this process. That said, this is only the start of the engagement that the witnesses will have with this committee and I would hope that they will see this committee as a way of facilitating the discussion. As Deputy Thomas Byrne has said, we will have to convene again, perhaps six months from now, to see where things stand at that point. We might listen to some other voices at that point too.

On the North-South question, we must identify potential areas for all-island research collaboration. Areas like the agrifood sector, for example, are vitally important. If we do that collectively and start the work on that, other areas could come in behind that.