Mr. John James O'Hara:

To respond to the comments about a united Ireland, we are looking for the conversation to be moved forward. Tourism Ireland came out of the Good Friday Agreement. I think all of us here, even a Kerryman, would respect what Tourism Ireland has done. Tourism in the North is up 26%; tourism in Leitrim increased by 14% last year. The past five years have seen a year-on-year increase in our tourism product. Tourism Ireland is one example of a body that has worked very well selling a product on an all-island basis. We are a small island so we must seek to move the conversation forward. It might take three, four or five years, but under the Good Friday Agreement we have one example that has worked very well. Why not consider a food label next and move that forward? It is a question of taking the matter at different stages to move it forward.

Leitrim Tourism Network, one body we set up, is about bringing businesses together. As we see it, the main thing is to get a conversation going. In our paper, which we have here and will give to the committee, we examine Irish Network. The idea of this is to work it out county by county on a 32-county basis. We started examining this project two years ago, even before Brexit was talked about. We did the tests in Leitrim Tourism Network. We sell different products together. I brought the committee a brochure, in case the members do not know where Leitrim is, to make sure we can get them there. The idea of it is that the conversations of all communities must be considered and taken on board. There will be many disagreements and agreements, but we are already working together along the Border counties. Leitrim Tourism Network works with tourism in the North. We move people to the Giant's Causeway and right into Scotland. We sell Scotland tours. I will show the committee a brochure on this. We sell Ireland-Scotland tours together because we identified a market about six years ago of people coming here for six to eight days and spending six to eight days in Scotland. In such cases it is natural to travel right around. We must examine what we have already done, move forward and try to take the next step.