Ms Aingeal O?Donoghue:

It is the same. A key decision that had to be made early on was not to go back and redesign because then we would have to go and get new planning. There are various pieces that continue to be worked on. We have a sort of strategic oversight group involving the Departments, North and South, because there are bits about connectivity and so on.

I will move on to the strategic rail review. Again, what is very good about the strategic rail review is that it was a joint exercise by the two Departments, North and South. They have a shared high-level steering group, and that met last week and approved the report at official level. However, there is another step that appears, which is that there needs to be a strategic environmental assessment done on the report, so that is what is happening at the moment. They have gone out to tender to look for somebody to do an all-island strategic environmental assessment and then, as part of that, there would be a public consultation. At that point, we will get a lot more insight in public into what is in the report. Clearly, again, the absence of an Executive in Northern Ireland has made it a bit more complicated around publishing the report but we are very keen to find ways to get it out there. That strategic environmental assessment is part of what needs to be done beforehand anyway.

On education and the north west, we have extensive ongoing engagement with Magee, with what is now the Atlantic Technological University, in particular Letterkenny, and with the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland. We are working through quite specific proposals with them but it would be premature for me to go into detail. I would say to the Senator on that commitment in New Decade, New Approach, NDNA, that we have been able to move on some of the others like the Ulster Canal and the Narrow Water bridge, and that is the kind of priority one we really want to see moving. Hopefully, we will be able to come back to that.

Mr. Duffy will deal with the Wild Atlantic Way and local government.