Mr. Aidan Gough:

Productivity in Northern Ireland has historically been low and continues to lag. We have seen from the research we have just published that cross-Border exporters have a 9% productivity premium. Cross-Border trade is contributing to a core problem for the Northern Irish economy and given the number of businesses involved and the fact that so many of them are small, the impact is considerable.

The vouchers are primarily for small businesses. Large companies usually have resources and supports elsewhere to deal with this.

On Horizon 2020, there has been a guarantee that the British Government will support existing partnerships up until Horizon 2020. Beyond that we are not sure what will happen. There is scope for third country status which the British Government may avail of but there is a degree of uncertainty at the moment which is not helpful to say the least when we are trying to form partnerships. We see that anecdotally as we try to promote cross-Border partnerships.