Ms Aingeal O?Donoghue:

I thank the Chair very much. I wish everyone a good afternoon. It is great to have this opportunity. This is actually the first time I have been here in person. We have held a couple of these meetings virtually and this is the first time it has been in person. It is great to be here to have the opportunity to brief members on the Government's shared island initiative. I am joined by my colleague, Mr. Duffy.

As the committee is aware, the programme for Government set out a series of objectives on shared island and a commitment to engage with all communities and political traditions to build consensus around a shared future, underpinned by the Good Friday Agreement.

There are three main elements in how we have taken forward the shared island initiative. First, we have been making progress on long-standing and new cross-Border investments, supported by the shared island fund and other sources. Second, we have been engaging with all communities through a comprehensive dialogue series on how we could better share the island into the future. Third, we have commissioned and published research to help deepen our understanding of the whole island in economic, social, cultural and political terms. This is working in an sustained, ambitious and comprehensive way to realise the full potential of the Good Friday Agreement and deepen co-operation and societal connections around the island.

Clearly, the continuing absence of the Executive in Northern Ireland and, therefore, the inability of the North-South Ministerial Council to meet impacts what can be done through the institutions of the agreement at present and impacts on the overall context for all-island co-operation and interaction.

Nevertheless, over the past two and half years, we have been able to make significant progress with the Government’s all-island investment and co-operation objectives. Importantly also, there has been a good, encouraging level of engagement from civic stakeholders, North and South, and across different communities. One of our key objectives is to build and expand on this in the time ahead.

The committee’s engagement on the shared island initiative, including through formal meetings here and participation in our events, which the Chair and other members have attended, is an important contribution. I will also take a moment to compliment the committee on its extensive work on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and on its wider interaction and support for all-island co-operation and the relationships of the agreement.

While I will not necessarily read out every word of the delivered written statement, I will perhaps briefly go through some of the highlights of each of these main areas, the first of which is around building a shared island. The Government has so far allocated €191 million from the shared island fund to make progress with long-standing cross-Border infrastructure projects and new initiatives to invest for a more connected, sustainable and prosperous island for all communities. It is important, and I have said this before, that the shared island initiative is a whole-of-government initiative. While the unit is located in the Department of the Taoiseach, we work very closely with all Departments. Allocations from the fund are made by the Government and then the projects are taken forward by the relevant Ministers and their Departments, working, of course, through all-island partnerships with counterparts in Northern Ireland, the British Government and local authorities and civil society organisations. As part of the advance briefing, we have provided a detailed table of all the allocations under the fund.

I will highlight a few of the key themes. First, under the landmark cross-Border infrastructure projects, €47 million has been committed from the shared island fund to enable delivery of phases 2 and 3 of the Ulster Canal as a major recreation and sustainable tourism asset in the central Border region. Following a long hiatus, which the Chair and I have spoken about many times, work has resumed on the Narrow Water Bridge, with the fund providing €3 million to Louth County Council to bring the project back to the development phase. Last week, on 21 April, the council issued the formal tenders for the project. This is a major landmark. I appreciate the support of many of the local representatives, including the Chair, for the project.

A second important theme has been all-island research, development and innovation. This includes a €50 million contribution to the North-South research programme administered by the Higher Education Authority, HEA. Under the first round last year, awards amounting to €37.5 million were made to 62 cross-Border research partnerships. There has also been a contribution to new all-island co-centres for research and innovation, the development of which has been led by Science Foundation Ireland, SFI. The two new co-centres will focus on climate and food sustainability. This is a really good example of the type of model we want to develop. The co-centres were funded with €20 million from the shared island fund, another €20 million from the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and complementary funding from the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and from the British Government through UK Research and Innovation. It is a good example of a North-South and east-west collaboration to address key challenges for the island.

The third theme is supporting economic development in the Border region. The Narrow Water Bridge and Ulster Canal projects play a role in this. We have also been able to fund a new initiative on collaboration in branding and marketing between the Wild Atlantic Way and the Causeway Coastal Route. We have committed to funding a cross-Border innovation hub in the north west, with locations in Letterkenny and Derry. There is also the shared island local authority development scheme, which is not confined to the Border area but has supported a lot of local authority collaborations in the region. In total, the scheme has funded 25 investment proposals whereby local authorities come together to do the preliminary feasibility and development work. That collaboration will be important as we see those projects coming out the other end.

Climate action, inevitably, is a key theme of all our engagements. It often comes out as a common strategic challenge for the whole island. We have allocated €3 million for the shared island dimension of the Government's community climate action scheme. We have also allocated €15 million for an all-island electric vehicle charging initiative, which is being run by the Department of Transport via sports clubs. This scheme provides publicly accessible electric vehicle charging points located at sports clubs. We are doing it through the sports bodies because almost all of them have an all-island mandate and reach. We are also engaged in work on biodiversity and peatland restoration.

Another area of our work relates to arts, culture and heritage. A number of interesting arts projects are supported by good co-operation between the two arts councils. We have funded a shared island dimension to the Government’s flagship Creative Ireland programme for 2023 to 2027. In January, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs commenced a new shared island civic society funding scheme, with resourcing of up to €3 million over three years to support civic organisations in working together on a cross-Border basis. We see this as important in supporting and deepening societal connections.

The Taoiseach has been clear that the Government intends to undertake significantly more all-island investment. Our preferred approach is to do this in co-operation with a new Northern Ireland Executive and with the British Government, but we will also do so in collaboration with other partners, as appropriate. A lot of our work at the moment, which we do in collaboration with Departments and Northern Ireland partners, involves identifying and developing a pipeline of future investment projects. We are looking at areas like higher education, education attainment, the enterprise sector, supporting the bio-economy and provision of cross-Border greenways.

Another area of our work is the research programme, the purpose of which is to provide a stronger evidence base and analysis for the whole island in economic, social, environmental and cultural terms. We are working in partnership on this with the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, the Irish Research Council, the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, and other partners. There have been more than 20 reports published in the first two years of the programme. It is an ongoing partnership, with further reports to be published in 2023, mainly in the second half of the year. We see these research outputs contributing to the development of a more ambitious agenda for all-island co-operation and to wider discussions on how we can share the island. Research has been undertaken on maximising foreign direct investment for the whole island, the services economy and productivity on the island. We have also been looking at migrant experiences and the circular economy.

A key area of work has focused on educational systems and outcomes. I compliment the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on its report on North-South student enrolments. This is an important aspect of our work. We take a systemic approach to developing research but we also encourage Departments, for example, to commission their own work. It is great to see research coming through from the Oireachtas by way of committee work. Doing the research is great and it informs our work and the dialogues. Part of what we are trying to do is to get our message out there, as well as the results and outputs. We do a lot of work partnering with the research bodies, launching events, engaging with civic society, academia and media, and providing briefings for political representatives and Departments, both North and South.

Last but certainly not least is the shared island dialogue series with all communities on the island. This is central to the approach of the shared island initiative. Over the past two years, we have had 14 dialogue events, with the participation of more than 2,500 citizens and civic representatives, to discuss how co-operation and interaction can help to address common challenges, to build relationships and to look at concerns for the future on the island. The initial phase of this engagement was all online. It is very welcome that we have been able to progress to in-person meetings. The events are not just about formal dialogue but also the building of relationships during the events themselves. The dialogues have focused on sectoral areas like healthcare, tourism and community development, as well as on wider societal issues such as equality, tackling gender-based violence and the issue of identities on the island of Ireland. We have held two of these dialogues in Northern Ireland, one in Belfast on culture and the other in Derry on identities on the island. They were both very well received and attended. It is positive that we are able to spread the reach of the dialogues right across the island. We have been struck by the positive interaction at the dialogues and the real and meaningful engagement from all communities and traditions. As we set out at the beginning of the initiative, the inclusion of underrepresented voices, particularly those of women, young people and ethnic minority communities, continues to be a priority. The breadth of experiences that are brought to bear on the dialogues adds a lot to the richness of the discussions.

A clear message we get from these engagements is that there a good deal of interest and support from civic society for working across the board for stronger cross-Border and cross-community interactions. The dialogues are also important in informing how the shared island initiative is developed and progressed. For instance, they have influenced the introduction of both the shared island civic society fund and the shared island dimension of the community climate action scheme.

The dialogues have also led to new civil society-led projects, notably the all-island women’s forum of the National Women’s Council of Ireland and the iCommunity Shared Practice Hub project of The Wheel and the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action, NICVA.

Looking to the future, we surveyed participants in January on how the dialogues could be continued and improved. Taking on board that feedback, we are now developing a refreshed programme which is aiming at more open and free-flowing discussions, that is aided anyway by being able to meet in person, and looking at the more intrinsic societal and sectoral concerns for the future of the island.

We held a first event on Monday of this week on the topic of media representation on the island of Ireland. The dialogue explored the successes and shortcomings of media representation on the island, how different communities, regions, and political and social issues are presented in media, and how this influences political and public debates. There was also a session looking at the media sector across the island and the scope for the development of deeper cross-Border networks and collaboration in news and other media.

Further dialogues are in preparation and we are looking at developing a more focused youth strand to the dialogues, because we have found there is a huge amount of interest, energy and ideas coming from young people and we want to try to tap into that. We will be convening further dialogues and the programme will be developed. We will keep the committee informed as that happens throughout this year and into 2024.

I am conscious I have addressed the committee before so I do not need to go over old ground. I wanted to focus on the progress since we last met. Since that time the then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, also did a session with the committee. I very much appreciate the opportunity to update the committee.