Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In response to the Chairman's initial comments, Ms O'Donoghue mentioned that the shared island unit is anxious to broaden its scope with regard to inviting views and so on. I welcome that. I go back to the huge corporate knowledge, expertise and experience that is in our local authorities at elected level and at official level. They dealt with cross-Border developments at a time when there were none, and at a time of very difficult political circumstances. Often they did this with very scarce resources and they drove forward projects for the benefit of communities North and South. There are other groups also. The local enterprise offices, the LEADER programmes and the different partnerships in each county have all been working away quietly and maybe not highlighting enough of the work they do in engaging with communities in counties north of the Border. If the shared island unit is to broaden the canvas in seeking more public opinion on its work, it should go directly to people who have a particular expertise across society and across the different sectors. That expertise is there. They have lived it through difficult times and bad times. Many of them would have good ideas that they have tried to progress over the years unsuccessfully. For what it is worth, I would be very anxious that the knowledge, experience and expertise of those particular groups is used, and particularly that elected people of all shades of political opinion at local level are involved and perhaps given the opportunity to speak directly to the shared island unit.