Mr Colin McGrath:

The comment on that must be how it is helping any farmer, unionist or nationalist. Farmers are facing a very uncertain time as a result of Brexit and they have concerns about how they carry out their practices in the future and how they secure the financial support they need to have. The logical place for that voice to be articulated is in a North-South Ministerial Council so that there can be agreement across the island, across these islands and across Europe to try to help those farmers. If the unionist representatives do not turn up, there is a massive voice that is missing. That is another democratic deficit that is going to have a major ramification for people at community level. I implore unionist representatives to turn up to the meetings at which there is due to be discussion about solutions. They are doing an absolute injustice to the people who have elected them to the positions that they are in by not attending. They are letting them down and shirking their responsibility. That goes even for this meeting, at which we do not have any unionist representatives. We can have an open and constructive conversation about the issues and problems and we can suggest methods to address them. Thankfully, the committee takes on board what we say and implements it into its representations in its future work. The unionist voice is again not being heard here today and that is an absolute let-down for those communities.

In terms of the substance of the answer, I will pass it to Ms Anderson because I went first on the previous two responses. I will let her go first and then I will come in after on the specific points that have been raised.