Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I had a great opportunity last year to write a report on the future of the all-island economy. It was the first time the Oireachtas had written such a report since the partition of the island, which is incredible. I spoke to 100 different groups from across the island of Ireland, from different backgrounds and with people who would not necessarily be focused on this issue. One thing that everyone agreed with was that if we plan, fund and deliver together the levels of economies of scale can be increased and the service delivery and consumption of service towards the end can be improved. This committee has learned, from the two council groups who came to the committee just in advance of the present witnesses, that there are great levels of engagement, interaction and co-operation. It appears, however, that this interaction is still ad-hoc. It seems that some groups get it together to function very tightly to plan, fund and deliver together. In Ms McIntyre's experience is there now a necessity - for mitigation purposes regarding Brexit - for a statutory development that says to organisations that function on the island of Ireland and who deliver in the same space to have a statutory obligation plan and fund together in the delivery of service? If we speak to the whole gamut of organisations, for example, there could be some who work in the area of providing services in a particular area of health care and yet there is a helicopter operating out of Enniskillen that does not function in Sligo. Some other organisation will say it is focusing on developing cross-Border enterprise, yet Cavan County Enterprise Board and the training board in Northern Ireland may be delivering exactly the same courses to people in the same target markets but who are living ten miles from each other. What steps can we take, as an island, in the mitigation of this threat in order to make the co-operation more seamless?