Lord Empey:

The way it works is that the Executive sees all papers relative to the different North-South bodies. After that reports are made periodically to the Assembly in Belfast about meetings of the North-South Ministerial Council and so on. The only people from Northern Ireland who populate the bodies are MLAs. They have had their salaries reduced anyway. That was done on previous occasions. There is no separate salary stream relative to the North-South bodies. In any event, I have to say that politicians by and large are not driven by having their salaries cut. Bigger issues are dominating it. I suspect that for some of them it is almost a badge of honour to have their salaries cut.