Ms Aingeal O?Donoghue:

I will answer some of the questions and ask Mr. Duffy to respond to others because I believe this is our last round. With regard to the A5, the Government has budgeted the €75 million and it has not yet been spent. It is going through a further process in the North following the interim report from the planning appeals commission. There will then be a further round of consultation and a final report. I cannot make commitments today but what I can say is that the A5 has always been regarded as a strategic project for the north west. If we get to a situation where it is going to happen and where there will be shovels in the ground, then speaking today, and I cannot say where we will be in a couple of years time, the Irish Government will be up for a conversation on how much more or in what way it can further support it. I do not think this conversation will happen until we get through these various planning cycles in the North. This project has been around as a joint project since St. Andrews. At this point, we would want to make sure it was moving into delivery phase, at which point we could have more conversations. This is all without prejudice but there certainly would be an openness to having that conversation.

With regard to the farming community, our colleagues in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine make the point that in the Border regions agriculture is an absolutely critical part of the economy. This is part of what we want to do. There are also interesting ideas about women in agriculture that we would like to see developed.

With regard to the unit, we are quite small. In addition to Mr. Duffy and me there are three other members of staff, with one more coming on board. That being said, we work very closely with others, including colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs and other Departments. It is a small unit but we have been able to maintain focus and deliver. People are not working in the office at present but we are Dublin-based. We are thinking about how we will do more regional outreach on the ground once we can travel and, going back to some of the points others have raised, how we do more, particularly with the younger generation. These are all issues we are looking towards to plan for the future.

I will have to come back on the Enniskillen bypass. I do not know whether there have been discussions. There may have been discussions between the Ministers, Mr. Mallon and Deputy Ryan. I will check this and come back on it.

To respond to Deputy Conway-Walsh, engagement with political parties and how we do this is another piece we need to develop more. These engagements for us with the committee have been very important. We have had engagement with political parties in the North and we have been open to engagement with all of them. Not all of them have met us but we have been very open to engaging with all of them. There is a piece that needs to be further developed. I know there are some initiatives in this area, perhaps looking at younger and newer members of the Assembly and the Oireachtas. There has also been some outreach between the women's caucuses in the Oireachtas and the Assembly and we have had some engagement on this with the chair of the women's caucus in the Oireachtas. It is a piece that as time goes on we want to develop more.