Dr. Anthony Soares:

I thank the Deputy for the questions. I will touch on both of them briefly and then hand over to Mr. Douds and other colleagues who may wish to comment. In terms of feedback from farmers and businesses, in the last quarterly survey space was provided for people to indicate not only if they were satisfied or unsatisfied but to expand on their answers. There was some commentary from local authorities and business representative groups and organisations indicating that they see opportunities coming of the protocol but that, perhaps, those opportunities are not being grasped with sufficient energy because of the political background which makes that more difficult. I refer the Deputy to the Northern Ireland Business Brexit Working Group and its commentary in terms of the implementation of the protocol, what that means for business and what they see as the necessary solutions in order to maximise the opportunities.

In terms of the shared island initiative, from the perspective of the Centre for Cross Border Studies it has enormous potential. We have participated in all of the dialogues to date, including the most recent on education. We engage with the shared island unit in all sorts of ways to try to make sure that we maximise the opportunities coming out of the shared island initiative. I wear another hat, that is, secretary to the Standing Conference on Teacher Education North and South, SCoTENS, which I am pleased to wear. The shared island initiative has initiated a collaboration with SCoTENS on the issue of funding for people involved in teacher education North and South in order to undertake research on education, which is really welcome. There is one issue, which is not necessarily a negative, in regard to the national development plan published yesterday and what it contained in terms of the North-South dimension, that is, for us to be able to maximise the opportunities provided by the shared island initiative and the national development plan, we need the two sides, North and South, to work together.

If one pole of that co-operation is not engaged or has difficulties with it then we are not going to be able to maximise the opportunities derived from the shared island initiative or from the national development plan. I am hopeful that we will be able to do so. I stress again, that in terms of civil society we will grasp any opportunity and we will always be open to grasping those opportunities that are provided to us to enhance our co-operation, North-South and east-west. Obviously, we would really welcome the political dimension being more favourable to that co-operation in order for us to exploit the opportunities. I will now hand over to my colleague Mr. Douds.