Ms Michelle Gildernew:

I will be brief. I welcome Professors FitzGerald and Morgenroth. Today's discussion has been a useful and informative and we must take cognisance of what they have said. I accept it is a partial analysis. There are differences, certainly, between the experiences in West and East Germany, for example, and here. We already have an integrated economy in Ireland. There are two ex-agriculture Ministers in the room and we know how fully integrated the agriculture and agri-food sectors are but this also is the case in terms of manufacturing and other things. It is also helpful that we now have a higher education alliance which will help to be transformative across the island.

The witnesses mentioned the issues around higher and further education. We recognise that County Fermanagh has a high level of students with A levels but a low level of graduates who work there. Notwithstanding the huge issues in attracting foreign direct investment, FDI, namely, our local broadband and roads infrastructure, we do not manage to hold onto all those graduates. That is certainly a problem for the economy.

I particularly want to ask, however, the witnesses' thoughts on the views of Mr. David McWilliams, who recently spoke about how the combined GDP of the Southern and Northern economies could absorb the subvention. Obviously, we would have priorities that would not necessarily be in parallel with those in Britain.

One of the things that the subvention does not do is to look into the tax take, etc., that big multinationals enjoy in the North. The revenues of the likes of Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's supermarkets are not counted as part of our overall revenue; those moneys are counted where the companies are headquartered. The point I want to make is that the economies in the North and the South could absorb the subvention even "before the commercial dynamism of unification kicks in", to quote from David McWilliams. What are the witnesses thoughts on that? I am going to leave time for Senator Ó Donnghaile to ask his question. I appreciate the witnesses being here.