Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I want to welcome Mr. McGrane, Mr. Lynam and Mr. Molloy and thank them for the presentations and answers thus far. I was just reflecting that the last time Mr. McGrane and I shared platform was in the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin in the fortnight running up to the referendum. Both he and I warned Danny Finkelstein that he should not be too presumptuous about a referendum victory, because of the noises that we were hearing. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, not least that Mr. McGrane has a lot more hair and I have less hair than when that happened.

In any event, I particularly want to dwell on the positive message that is being sent here today. Party politics aside - with the DUP, Tories, Sinn Féin and the lot of it - we have to look at the positive message for business between the two jurisdictions, and between Britain and Ireland, in particular.

One thing that I am very keen on, apart from the research co-operation agenda that has been spoken about by previous speakers, is the whole question of getting indigenous, as opposed to foreign direct investment, FDI, business firing on all cylinders. It occurs to me – and I am not making a party-political statement at all – that physical infrastructure and integration on this island could be hugely important in that regard. I know that we are talking about an east-west relationship primarily here, but we are also talking about integration on this island. The agreement that was negotiated with the European Union at the eleventh hour and 59th second last December was, in fact, a “best of both worlds” opportunity, both in the South and the North and on an east-west basis. Ireland and Britain, I think, are well-placed to do business together and to co-operate on business matters, in a way that the “hard Brexit” rhetoric that led up to that made us feel would not happen.

We hear about physical infrastructure. Mr. McGrane was asked about what could be done in the next budget. I see a lot of discussion about canals and greenways in the Border areas, as well as improving train connections from Dublin to Belfast. It seems to me that the infrastructure of the A5-N2 motorway to the north west and through the Border areas is a matter of huge importance. This is not an anti-green point. Roads are not being given the same degree of public support as they had when I was in government donkeys years ago. Trucks will be driven on hydrogen, goods will have to be moved from A to B, milk is not going to be moving down a fibreoptic cable from one part of the country to another. We really do have to improve on that.

I think that we should not allow any “short-termism” to enter into this. There has to be a good deal of underlying economic infrastructure to maximise the kind of win-win aspect that we believe is there. I want to emphasise that I believe that Derry, Letterkenny, Strabane, Omagh, Dungannon - all that axis - has to be looked at as an area that the Irish government must take seriously.

Finally, I want to again say to our guests from the British Irish Chamber of Commerce here today that, as far as I am concerned, whatever the petty problems that have emerged – some of them were serious and some of them were petty – I agree completely with what Mr. McGrane said. They can be ironed out. I hope that the friction between the EU and the United Kingdom - which is probably going to play out on everything, from fish in Jersey to wherever - that Ireland in particular, as a society, takes on board what Mr. McGrane says. If the protocol is imperfect, it can be made perfect, to the advantage of unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland, to the advantage of North and South, and to the advantage of east and west.