Mr. Eoin Doyle:

I wish to make three brief points. I emphasise how proactive this partnership is being in getting the message out to Westminster and to the decision makers. In recent times, primarily through the offices of Deputy Brendan Smith, as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence, very high-level delegations from Westminster have visited the Cavan-Monaghan region. They have stayed in Cavan and they have met with people and businesses on the ground. Likewise, we have had very high delegations from the French Parliament and the German ambassador. Next week, the Maltese Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Promotion and the Maltese ambassador will be visiting the region. The message we want to send is that we are being pro-active in selling the needs of the region beyond these Houses, wherever we feel it would be productive.

In regard to relocation, there is very strong evidence that businesses are not in a position to expand or to radically change their business models. Our principal worry is that the withdrawal of markets or the creation of obstacles to markets may pull the rug from under businesses that are currently very strong.

Finally, I emphasise again the strength of the relations within the local authorities and communities at present. That is a testament to the Good Friday Agreement and what it has achieved for the country. It behoves us all to ensure that is not undermined in the future.

In terms of broadband and its importance, the announcement by Eir this week of investment into those towns and areas with more than 1,000 homes is to be welcomed. It is great to see that happening; it will impact on our region. However, the hard to reach areas are still missing out. I am referring to rural areas not covered by this delegation. We await with interest the delivery of the national broadband plan and the results of that tendering process. We hope that can be linked into mobile connectivity proposals, as we have spoken about previously. That must be delivered across a region such as ours because one roams into areas of inadvertent roaming. When one crosses the Border one experiences a drop in signal. That is not good for businesses, people or homeowners living on the Border whose homes are constantly moving in and out of roaming charges. If Brexit comes to pass and the UK leaves the EU Digital Single Market we are back to a charging regime which puts the region at a competitive disadvantage. That must be engineered out through licences, and I believe it is possible to do that.

The Ulster Canal could be a fantastic project, and has been long advocated for in our region. We have no doubt that if it achieved the required investment it could be a huge success. We only have to point to the example of the Geopark between Cavan and Fermanagh and Omagh, which is something we should shout about a bit more. It is the largest single visitor attraction in the Border region, with some 400,000 visitors. I appreciate that Fermanagh, Omagh and Cavan might never have thought to aspire to that level of success originally. The growth potential and the ability to deliver good projects is there in our region. The agrifood, engineering and manufacturing sectors in our area are interlinked; that is what has happened since the Good Friday Agreement and the opening of relations, and the work of groups such as this committee have done have brought people together. We have a concern that Border relations might be affected because of the wider discourse around these issues. What the Irish Central Border Area Network, ICBAN, proves is that Sinn Féin, the UUP, the DUP, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the SDLP and others to work together on a common agenda. Politics is essentially left outside the room, and we work, where we can, on the common issues of the time.

Mental health is a big issue in our region, as we found out through the research we carried out on Brexit in conjunction with Queen's University Belfast. Community planning officials from the region meet regularly; the next meeting, next month, is all about mental health and the issues affecting the region. We will really dig into it. This initiative is being led by the local authorities, the local community development committees, LCDCs, and the community planning partnerships respectively in each jurisdiction.

We are not here to complain that our region has always been left out. We are here to say that when investment has been made in this region we deliver. The facts are there. This region is as busy as the other Border regions. It is great to see that they are so busy and to see that they are in receipt of support. We should fill in the missing link, which is the central Border region. We have the key centres of production. Mr. McCreesh spoke about the enterprise focus and the enterprise centre. Mid-Ulster, to pick one area, is the single biggest single contributor in Northern Ireland to gross value added to those indicators, in terms of manufacturing outputs. We look at the industries right across our area, down into Monaghan and Cavan, and west into Leitrim and Sligo, which has a thriving small business economy. It covers an area of approximately 750,000 people, and is the biggest cross-Border area, and the area with the most crossings. We work with its complexity and richness. We also offer an alternative to the traffic congestion in Dublin. There were reports yesterday that Dublin is the third most congested city in the world after Bogotá and Rome. We are only an hour up the road, and can offer fantastic quality of life. If the final investments we need in roads, in connectivity and broadband are delivered it would mean that people would not have to commute so much and allow us to deliver on creative economy solutions.

We ask for the committee's help in profiling the importance and the value of the central Border region. The members are Deputies for these areas, and we ask them, within their political parties, to remember to profile the central Border region as being important. It should be raised as regularly as possible with the Irish Government, and indeed with the Northern Irish Government. We want it to be raised in Westminster as often as possible too. Mr. McCreesh mentioned the work we have been doing on regional spatial strategy. The presentation we gave today is based on a collective response to the regional strategy, because we feel the national planning framework has ignored our region to a large degree. If we could have some support or assistance from Government, either by way of funding or help or assistance to develop and build upon our spatial plan, our economic policy resolution and our ideas on how these areas could be more effectively knitted together, we could turn an area with untapped potential into a major economic driver. It is holding its own with other areas at the same time as being the area that is most neglected in terms of investment.