Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will leave out the preamble so. I thank all the witnesses for coming today. I am particularly grateful to Ms Cousins, the deputy secretary of the skills and education group, for making the effort to be here. We are trying to create more opportunities for people of all ages to access education across the island, which can only be good. The recent survey carried out for The Irish Timesand the Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South, ARINS, project found that two thirds of people in the South say they have relations and friends in the North. Over 80% said they have no relations there. The project also fund that more than half had not travelled across the Border in the past five years. That is truly shameful. The barriers to third level education contribute substantially to those statistics. In addition, economic reports tell us about the impact of the brain drain on productivity and everything else.

Today, we want to tease out some of the contents of the report we published in July and the specific things we can do to put that into action. Obviously, the big game changer is legislation giving the HEA a task that cannot be shied away from. My first question is for Dr. Patterson. With the introduction of the new legislation, the HEA now has a very clear mandate and function to promote and increase cross-Border student enrolment.

What actions has the HEA taken to increase the cross-Border enrolment or to identify and remove the barriers to cross-Border enrolment? Has that work started? Are there any pathways there?