Ms Lorraine Higgins:

Deputy Breathnach asked about smuggling. As he will be aware, smuggling is costing the Exchequer over €2 billion on an annual basis. That is a significant amount of money. It is not something we can sustain. We had a number of complaints from members of Retail Excellence for whom solid fuel represents half of their turnover and who found, particularly in the past six months, that they had a unusually quiet period. They normally subsidise their incomes with garden centres and sell fuel during the winter months. Then we heard individual reports of persons and groups, as far south as Kerry, who were having illicit fuel delivered and those who were bringing it to them were making €5,000 a drop, which is obviously of concern. The Deputy's Bill might go some way towards sorting that out. If there is more enforcement and collaboration on the part of the authorities, North and South, if more resources are provided and if stronger legislation is put in place, it would have an impact in the context of tackling the scourge of smuggling.

The Deputy also mentioned funding for transport. As I pointed out earlier, there is a €20 billion pot available in Europe under the TEN-T funding scheme. We satisfy the criteria in terms of need, requirement and critical population mass and, therefore, accessing such funding could lead to an enterprise service between Belfast and Dublin becoming a reality.

Deputy Breathnach referred to tourism. Certainly, increased collaboration is required between the state agencies, North and South, for example, Fáilte Ireland and Tourism NI. With the establishment of a North-South retail forum, that would certainly put flesh on the bones of the commitment to deal with this issue. We would have a strong role to play. There are all sorts of opportunities in this area. I refer, for example, to Ireland's Ancient East. There is the potential of developing loops off Ireland's Ancient East and this must be considered. Mr. Roberts has already referred to weekend shopping breaks. When people come to Ireland, they want experience. That is why they come here in the first instance. What would be better than visiting two cities on one break? If we can sort out the transport issues and properly market Belfast and Dublin as viable shopping destinations, many women will make their way here in droves.

Mr. Doherty mentioned a number of issues. To return to the significance of retail, I suppose it is shown by the fact that retail sales are often used as a barometer for how the economy is performing.

We already know, based on the information I have given in my submission, that retail in the South in particular is being affected as a consequence of Brexit. The future of decentralisation is obviously quite important. I am not so sure of the position regarding the spatial strategy. I think the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government or some of the Deputies present may be better informed in that regard and may be able to shed some light on it. There is no doubt that development needs to be clustered around proper infrastructure. As a person from the west, I know that the airports at Shannon and Knock need to be developed further. Infrastructure is essential for foreign direct investment because prospective investors look for proper road networks, airports, train connectivity and so on.

A proper functioning fibre-optic broadband system is absolutely critical to decentralisation and further development in rural Ireland. There are many cottage industries, particularly in the food sector, which are heavily dependent on exporting goods to the UK market. It is important to get these cottage industries into new markets. Enterprise Ireland has a role to play in that, where it could leverage and use linguistic supports and networks that have been built up over the years. If we bring jobs to rural Ireland through decentralisation programmes and the improvement of infrastructure, people will spend money and that obviously helps our members handsomely.