Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I will take the Deputy's overall point, if I have interpreted it correctly, that we need to maintain dialogue at all times, in terms of all the perspectives in Northern Ireland - political, civic and community perspectives - and engage at a multi level. Let us use a "benign approach", as the Deputy put it. I would say that we must be proactively constructive in developing good cross-Border initiatives and economic alignment.

I was very struck by the meetings I had with the various council groups. The north west regional group really impressed me because they leave politics outside the doors of their councils in Derry, Strabane and Donegal. They look at themselves as an integrated region. They look at what can be expanded and how they can get investment into the region. Those are the kind of questions that they ask themselves and they create strategies around that. I want to support that type of initiative. We have made it very clear that we are there to support those kinds of initiatives. The shared island fund gives us some type of financial capacity to support those initiatives over and above the rhetoric. People have said for years that they would do this and that, but now we have put flesh on the bone to try to give real support to a number of cross-Border initiatives.

That would benefit citizens on the island of Ireland and help people to have a better quality of life. I think we can do an awful lot on the active transport piece, on the industrial side, in respect of broader economic co-operation and, above all, education and research.