Mr. Damien McCallion:

I am conscious I was asked to make a point on the shared island concept. We would see potential. We have tried to focus on the priorities from a health and social care perspective and then almost look at where the funding streams can support us. We need to be clear that people are committed to the projects because each of these takes substantial effort when everyone is already under pressure. Innovation is great but when a system is under pressure, like the health service has been for the last few years, it can be hard to engender that enthusiasm in people who have been through very tough times for the last two years. CAWT plays a role in trying to take some of the project burden away. We can facilitate that, appoint project managers and try to pull people out to support that, so we are certainly looking at that. We have a set of priorities around mental health, disability services and what we call integrated care, looking at areas like obesity, renal services and medicines management. We will then look at putting the right submissions in, which we know we can deliver through all of the partners, both through the EU’s PEACE PLUS and also in regard to potential opportunities on the shared island.

Colleagues in the Department are working with both Departments in Northern Ireland on areas like cancer research under that collaboration, and there is also potential around the specialties and on more policy-related areas like specialised services and how we could collaborate. CAWT would facilitate that. Although we are not a statutory body, there is a huge amount of experience from the chief executives. As Mr. Guckian said, the chief executives of the Saolta Group and the RCSI Group, for example, are active participants. While CAWT might not be directly responsible for that, it allows those relationships to form that ultimately make things work.

The Deputy mentioned my predecessor, Tom Daly, and I acknowledge his work over the years. I will pass on the Deputy’s kind words to him and the criticism on moving the Ulster final out of Clones as well. A lot of that work was made possible through people having relationships and trying to do that. It is helpful that both at the policy level and from the ground up, we can bring those two parts together to make things happen. That has been the experience over the years. In some ways, we have often been asked whether we would be better as a statutory body. There is probably a strong view that we are not, because it allows that collaboration, free-flowing discussion and dialogue to try to create these things, which are the right things to do for people who live in Border areas.