Ms Aingeal O?Donoghue:

I will be brief and maybe I will ask Mr. Duffy to come in as well. My thanks to all the committee members. A considerable amount of what was said is exactly what we are aiming to do and trying to do.

I will say a few more words on funding. As announced, it is a total of €500 million for the next five years. There is already an initial provision in budget 2021 of €50 million. To answer the first question, it is important to understand this is about additional money. The Government is already providing a large amount of funding in a range of North-South areas, including the support for the North-South bodies and a variety of initiatives from the hospital in Altnagelvin to the Middletown Centre for Autism. There are other areas like the reconciliation fund of the Department of Foreign Affairs. These are in place and will continue. Equally, we have the PEACE PLUS funding, which we expect to come on board from next year. That is in place and will continue. The idea with the shared island fund is absolutely one of additionality. It will go to fund a variety of the commitments in the programme for Government. Where there are existing allocations to Departments, as there are in some cases, for example, like the A5, then they stay in place. It is about Departments continuing to do what they are doing already and then we are able to come in on top of that.

As projects become ready for funding, we will have a governance arrangement in place between the Departments of the Taoiseach, Foreign Affairs and Public Expenditure and Reform regarding the disbursal of the moneys involved. Another point to note is that this is capital funding rather than day-to-day, ongoing funding.

Deputy Blaney mentioned a number of projects. In terms of the rail project, it is being extended from Cork, Dublin, Belfast and on to Derry in terms of developing terms of reference for a feasibility study. We see that as a project that has a lot of potential. The Chairman mentioned the Narrow Water bridge, on which subject I also heard him speak last night in the debate on the Brexit omnibus Bill. Again, this is very much to the fore and it has been discussed already by the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and his counterpart in Northern Ireland, Ms Nichola Mallon.

On local authorities, we do see them as an engine of cross-Border co-operation. As has been said, they have been active for a long time in this area. I will ask my colleague, Mr. Duffy, to comment on the dialogues.