Mr. Bernard McGuinness:

I thank the committee for the work it is doing and for inviting us. I have been a member of the cross-Border committee for many years. We have worked and progressed and the cross-Border committee has developed to where we are today. It is very exciting. We start off from a position of peripherality in terms of both Governments. The most peripheral area is Donegal when viewed from Dublin while Derry-Strabane is the most peripheral area when viewed from Belfast or London. If one starts off from that position with a border down the centre of it, one knows that affects economic development. That is where we came from. We are working to try to bridge that.

I am dealing with the environment, infrastructure and regeneration. The Department for Infrastructure, DFI, is the utmost importance to us. In respect of that connection to Dublin and the A6 to Belfast, the development of roads in the north west is crucial to the further development of the city region. Having a city region is tremendous but not being able to travel to or from there is not. Much work has been done on the N13 and N14 economic corridor, the TEN-T routes, the A6 to Belfast and N2 to Dublin. That is of the most important thing for us at the moment.

The multi-modal transport hub in the Waterside is a €30 million development. I have reservations about the frequency of the trains. If someone cannot leave Derry city and get a connecting train through to Dublin via Belfast, that must be dealt with. We met Transport Infrastructure Ireland and I made that point to it.

We have done other major developments that are within our remit. The Strabane-Lifford project is at an advanced funding stage. The north-west greenway will cost €18 million and will cover 46 km from Derry to Muff. Those things are in progress and tremendous funding has been provided. The regional greenways technical feasibility study is under way.

There are two airports in the region, City of Derry Airport and Donegal Airport in Carrickfinn. Information sharing and collaboration on the operation of route development are taking place. That is very important for us. It is very important that people can get to the region. The development of a regional energy strategy and climate adaptation strategy relates to general policy on climate change and monitoring the same. I started on this committee many years ago. It goes back to having a proper road structure. We are doing all this and have demonstrated this to Governments. I salute both our chief executives and their councils for the work they do but we need infrastructure.

We need roads. We do not have a train service into the area other than Derry city. One cannot get that connection from Derry to Dublin. That should be insisted upon. I believe that with all of this, we would have a much better area.