Mr. Mickey Brady:

I want to talk about funding because I spent eight years in the Northern Ireland Assembly and I was on the Northern Ireland Committee for Health during that time. Some 43% of the Executive's budget was spent on health and the other 57% was spent on education, infrastructure and so on. There was simply not enough money.

Part of the problem, if not the entire problem, is Tory austerity. They took approximately £1.2 billion off the Executive's budget during the eight years I was there and that has not been replaced. Therein lies the problem because we do not have fiscal levers in the North even if the Assembly is up and running. It should be because, obviously, local people would make local decisions and better decisions. That needs to be addressed as well. We get a cake that one slices it up as best as one can and this is the case across the educational sector. The position integrated education is in is even worse because it does not get the funding it should be getting anyhow so therein lies the problem.

Brexit will be a disaster for everybody. I go to Westminster. I was over there this week and the previous week. Nobody has a clue what is happening, including the people who are supposed to make decisions, but funding for integrated education is an even bigger problem in many ways because schools are relying on parents and fundraising. This is why they have the organisation they have, which is to be commended, because they are very much on their own in that sense. The two governments have responsibility to ensure the Good Friday Agreement is implemented and a major part of that is the promotion of integrated education.