Dr. Anthony Soares:

I will address what can be done collectively to ensure there is a specific programme post Brexit that will address the needs of communities in the Border region, including by this committee, Government and Departments. Ms Arthurs and other witnesses have alluded to it. It entails listening to the people and communities of the Border region who live and work there. I will give a specific example, which I can use as an opportunity to plug a project which is not EU-funded. It has alternative funding from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Community Relations Council in Northern Ireland and most recently the reconciliation funds from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, for which we are very grateful. Those funds are for a new common chapter project which is working with community groups from both sides of the Border. They have come up with their vision of what they want for co-operation, how we go about co-operating and what kinds of issues with co-operation they would like to see addressed. They are about to link up with community groups in Scotland, England and Wales because they are conscious not just of the North-South element but of the east-west one too. That would fit in with the Good Friday Agreement. If we are to respect all parts of the Good Friday Agreement in Brexit, since both the EU and UK Government have said they will protect it, it is not just about the institutions in Northern Ireland but also the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and the island of Ireland as a whole and Great Britain. Perhaps the committee will invite members of those community groups to present their draft common chapter to this committee. That might help.

With regard to the 15% that I mentioned, the Centre for Cross Border Studies, in two consultation responses to the current PEACE and INTERREG programmes, with specific reference to PEACE, noted the need to ring-fence at least 15% of that fund for cross-Border co-operation. We were afraid that because that programme, although it is a European territorial co-operation programme, has a derogation allowing projects funded from that to be in just one jurisdiction that, for very good reasons, many of those funds would be then spent in one jurisdiction and not support cross-Border co-operation. We are very concerned that we have ring-fencing for the part of the future PEACE PLUS programme that is a continuation of the current PEACE programme. INTERREG is truly cross-Border and we are unfortunately talking about a future PEACE PLUS programme where the INTERREG element will have lost part of what it currently contains, which is a connection between Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Border counties of Ireland in one INTERREG programme, and a connection between Wales and Ireland. Mr. Campbell and others have referred to the lack of definition about where LEADER fits into the future of this. Committee members can promote the voices of people in the region, support them in what they are trying to do with their vision for co-operation, and help us to pay close attention to what is coming with the future PEACE PLUS programme. Ms Arthurs also alluded to paying close attention to the UK Government's proposed UK shared prosperity fund and the fact that it, as a replacement for EU structural funds, seems to ignore that structural funds fund cross-Border co-operation.