Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the panel for their contributions.

First, I thank Dr. Soares and Professor McKenna for their long advocacy and work in the area of North-South co-operation when it comes to education. Indeed, I am interested in and will return to Mr. McKendry's programmes.

What has changed since last year is we have legislation and we have work starting in the area recognises the problems that they are identifying. What has been helpful, both from this week and from last week, is looking at the specifics of what will take us from a position where it is clear we have quite poor collaboration. They certainly identified some of those areas, for example, the blockages when it comes to the applications processes. Professor McKenna spoke about his work in trying to encourage the education system north of the Border to even give the information to students about what there is south of the Border. There are still some key areas that it is quite hard to see a path through, that is, the fullness of the institutions south of the Border and how we change that. I was interested in Dr. Soares's approach to programmes where we are looking not at a full-time mobility but a part-time mobility model. Is that something we could flesh out and have as a cornerstone, maybe to even get things started?

I am interested in the programme in Mr. McKendry's institution in that it very much linked to agriculture and food. I am interested to know to what extent is it aligning with Government policy. Policy might be very different, North and South. We have a climate action plan in place. We need to see that people are being educated in a way that aligns with the plan. How does Mr. McKendry see that progressing in the future in order for us to have this mobility of people working North and South when there are two different administrations and different policies? It is something that we have to take into consideration south of the Border.

That has an implication for a person going to work in a different jurisdiction. He or she needs to have the basics in that jurisdiction's policies, procedures and administration. Is that achievable? I think it is. I would be interested to know the circumstances of the witnesses and how it has been achieved to date.