Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 22 June 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement

Engagement with Irish Central Border Area Network

Photo of Rose Conway-WalshRose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for this engagement. As a former councillor myself, I understand the challenges and the time and labour involved in putting together the documents they have put together and doing the work they have done. This is the way forward and is one of the most practical documents I have seen for a long time. What really speaks to me is the part where they ask what could be achieved if the area received a level of investment comparable with other similar regions. They can understand why that statement would really resonate with me, coming from Mayo. They have all the answers here. I will hone in on a couple of things.

Because my portfolio is higher education, I am very excited about the opportunities presented by the technological university linking up Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, GMIT, with the institutes in Sligo and Donegal and then on to Derry. I am glad ICBAN has a meeting coming up there. There are a couple of things within this around the deeper co-operation between the two third level education systems on the island that we really need to hone in on. As was said, we need to increase cross-Border co-operation in the third level education sector. That has been included in multiple Government programmes across the board in the South, in 2007, 2009 and 2020. The new Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has included it as well in its statement of strategy for 2021 to 2023 with the goal of advancing North-South co-operation. There is still, however, very limited integration and co-operation.

Taking just the area of co-operation and cross-Border student enrolment, the most recent figures available are for the 2019-20 academic year. They show that 1,588 students from the North attended higher education institutions in the South and that 2,090 students from the South attended higher education institutions in the North. That speaks for itself. Overall, student mobility has declined in the past ten years by 18%, and students from the North make up less than 1% of students in the South in enrolment terms. That tells us that all the good work we are doing on this is not hitting where it needs to hit. As an aside, John O'Dowd, my counterpart in the North, and I are doing a specific piece of research on what the barriers are in that regard. We know that some of them relate to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, UCAS, and the CAO application systems, extending Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, to the North and several other things that have been thrown up for us. We have to tackle this for once and for all. My question about that part of it is whether the witnesses think further education colleges have the capacity and the independence to reach out to develop sustainable structures to support cross-Border education and training. I have concerns in that regard. While the universities seem to be on a better level, notwithstanding the low figures, I am not sure whether the structure is there for further education, which the witnesses have agreed is hugely important, or whether they have the capacity to deliver what we need to deliver in terms of cross-Border education. I also note the part of the submission where the witnesses say there are particular challenges around Traveller education and Protestant boys. I ask the witnesses to speak to that as well if they do not mind.

I also need to ask the witnesses about the western rail corridor, the connectivity along the Wild Atlantic Way and the economic corridor along the west. Somebody mentioned the connectivity between Dublin and Belfast. In the west our concern is the huge potential along the western seaboard, going right up to the North, around and down in terms of the western rail corridor and the arc there from Rosslare connecting Waterford and Cork and continuing on to Limerick and Foynes. There is enormous potential there in terms of tourism development and freight. How do the witnesses see that fitting in with the work they are doing?

I have to ask the witnesses about the practical impacts on ICBAN of Brexit and the protocol in particular. I am interested in their views on that.

If we have time, somebody might address what we can do to mitigate the Australian trade agreement. I have concerns about that as it relates to agri-development and the impact that that will have on the agriculture sector in the North. As for ICBAN's unionist engagement, as a group, what have the witnesses done in that regard and what are their plans to ensure that everybody's voice is heard?

I have an awful lot of other questions but I will not put them. I hear what Mr. Campbell says because I used to work on the LEADER programme. It is important we do something tangible now about the exchange of learning and - I do not like to call them transnational projects - the cross-Border projects that can be facilitated under LEADER and PEACE PLUS. That is an imperative piece of work that needs to be done in how we develop that into the future and what we need to do as Deputies to work with ICBAN to do it.

I know that is a lot of questions. The witnesses might divide them between themselves to give me a few answers.

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