Mr. Pat Doherty:

I welcome Ms Higgins and Mr. Roberts and I particularly welcome their presentations. I was very struck by the all-Ireland nature of Mr. Roberts's presentation. With all these conversations, we are moving in the right direction. Watching the debate in Europe, I can see how they have taken on board the Good Friday Agreement, the peace process and no borders in Ireland. All of that is to be welcomed because Brexit will affect not just the North but all of Ireland. It will affect them in different ways but it will be very negative. My party and other parties have brought forward documents calling for special status within the EU. I am not hung up on names. It is the detail that counts. By and large, we are on the one page on all of that. However, one then faces the history and nature of relationships within these islands, which go back hundreds of years, and the question of how they can be maintained. There needs to be a huge focus on all of that.

We have often rehearsed arguments here over the A5, the A6 and the Derry to Belfast train.

When I first went into west Tyrone, I used wonder why so many Tyrone people went on holiday to Bundoran. Then I looked at the old railway maps and all the rails ended up in Bundoran. It was a holiday destination. There is the history of that.

My specific question relates to the witnesses' view on decentralisation - in the North, west of the Bann and, in the South, west of the Shannon. That covers a significant area. Whatever growth exists in Ireland is on the eastern seaboard. That will lead to all types of imbalances and knock-on problems unless we adopt a more specific and focused spatial policy.

We have had debates about the lack of rail services in the North and we came up with a concept. I am trying to answer the question as to whether rail lines could be put in place alongside the A5-N2 when it is being built. We are informed that the trajectory and the gradients do not suit trains and that there are different criteria for roads. My colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, is an engineer and he seems to think that this is true and that we have do different things about it.

The key point is that I would like the witnesses' views on the decentralisation programmes, from the Assembly and from the Dáil, to push industry and commerce west of the Shannon and west of the Bann.