Ms Aingeal O?Donoghue:

I thank everyone for their engagement and their encouragement. There were a few very specific points and an important broader point about how we build the engagement between the shared island unit and the committee, which we take away from this. I thank the Chairman for his point on the politics of the role of officials. I assure Senator Ó Donnghaile that I did not mean the citizens' assembly was not inclusive. When I was thinking of the citizens' dialogue it was more the span, the number, the range and the scope of the engagement.

Obviously, the citizens' dialogue itself as currently constructed is very carefully managed around inclusivity in terms of how the participants are chosen. I was not intending to suggest that at all.

There is quite a lot here. What is encouraging for us is the extent to which the themes we are pursuing and see coming through from our engagement are also the themes that the committee is talking to us about, including the role of local authorities, which is a particularly clear one, the role of higher education institutions across the island, enterprise opportunity, climate opportunities and issues around deprivation, and deeper engagement from ourselves. We do not have all the answers. Going back to Deputy Smith's point about the depth of knowledge that is out there, we work very carefully with, for example, colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs and then equally with others who have a long history of engagement in these issues. We certainly do not claim to have all the answers, and therefore this engagement is really important for us. We take it very seriously and take away all the points made to us. I thank members very much.