Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses do not need to answer my first question until we get to the end. Are they worried about Brexit? In what way are they worried about Brexit? How will it affect the Special EU Programmes Body's funding?

When is the next round? I know it is the PEACE and also INTERREG. The body got €1.6 billion and INTERREG was €1.13 billion. Is that over 15, 20 or 22 years? Is that likely to come again and what will the Special EU Programmes Body get again? I am somewhat confused. I know the body is assessing part of it. I know a lot of that money has been used brilliantly. What are the body's hopes for the future? What does the body hope to get? How might Brexit put a thorn in that?

When does PEACE end? We are 22 or 24 years into the peace process and have the Good Friday Agreement. I do not mean that in a bad way. Is it possible that that becomes something else or morphs into something else? How long will that continue? With the possibility of physical borders again, there is a threat that a lot of things could be welling up.

From what I have read the Special EU Programmes Body's work - the science park, the scouts, the Peace Bridge, the Girdwood hub, the multi-use sports facility, the CREST, the social farming - is extraordinary. In the previous Seanad I had the privilege of going to Taiwan, which has done a brilliant job on the development of science parks. Their ideas about health and the environment are extraordinary. Taiwan is an island like Ireland with a relationship that has been fractured down through the years with a bigger country, China, to its west.

As someone who lives in Dublin and has a mother from Northern Ireland, I knew nothing about these. As I mentioned to the previous group that appeared before the committee, communication is very important. The Chairman took it up. It is not necessarily that the Special EU Programmes Body wants to become territorialised or get in on the territory. It was designed for the people living in the Border areas and who have suffered. However, the representatives of the Special EU Programmes Body need to communicate. There is so much that we could learn from and we do not get that communication at all. I do not know how they do that - they are doing it today, but in a very small way. I also said that to the groups from Derry and Louth that appeared before the committee. We do not even know about the Brexit problems here. We are not seeing them, hearing about them or feeling them in the way that those in the Border counties are. They need us and we need them because we are interlinked in 1,000 different ways.