Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Hanna for her commentary and the best of luck in her endeavours. She is probably in transit. The commitment is to infrastructure and to how we can advance services. Her point about Covid is very well made. I did not say so earlier, but there is huge potential for public health collaboration on outcomes in health and public health, such as Covid, infectious diseases and a whole range of other areas in the public health domain. I was struck yesterday by a report that flashed up online, which stated the Republic of Ireland had the highest level of life expectancy in the European Union. I did a double take because it always bugged me that we did not have the same level of life expectancy as other countries. We were sixteenth in 2000. A message is there somewhere in how we went from sixteenth to number one. I remember, when I was Minister for Health, we used to do an all-island mortality study so there are lessons all round.

On the skills front, we are committed to a cross-Border apprenticeship programme. Over the next while, we want to put flesh on the bones of that initiative. Apprenticeships are very important. They are enjoying somewhat of a renaissance in the Republic after experiencing a lull for quite some time, especially in construction trades and so on. To go back to Deputy Smith's point about further education, apprenticeships can have a role in that.

On the north west, we have met with Ulster University. Colum Eastwood was at that meeting in respect of all-island third level development and collaboration between Ulster University and the Atlantic Technological University. We have said we are willing to respond too, but the university has to develop the initiative. All colleges have to develop such initiatives in collaboration and then come back to us to say what they think will work. We will then be in a position to support and fund that. We will be funding an initiative emanating from Ulster University on that front.

We are engaging with the UK Government on the levelling up fund. We want it to be involved in this because the east-west dimension is important and speaks to the broader range of traditions and perspectives.

We are working with the British Government to see can we get matching funding and other funding in respect of some of the initiatives we are undertaking under the shared island fund. We think there is potential there also. To be fair, the UK Government put significant funding behind the PEACE PLUS programme with the EU, ourselves and the Executive, which has given a healthy fund also, so we think there is real potential on that east-west levelling up front.