Ms Aingeal O?Donoghue:

I thank Deputy Smith for his feedback on our engagement with local authorities. It has been an important part of our work and it has been led by Mr. Duffy. It is really good to hear the positive feedback. I take the Deputy's point about the enterprise projects that are within the local authority development fund scheme. Those projects have not come through to us yet. We want to see that pipeline coming through, and then we will have to look at how the next phase will be funded. We are also having discussions with Enterprise Ireland, InterTradeIreland and Invest Northern Ireland around what more can be done in the enterprise area. It is certainly something that we want to see developing.

The Ulster Canal project is great. It is a project where we can see actual diggers on the ground doing things. I also think it is important that it is a project being delivered by one of the North-South bodies, Waterways Ireland. To go back to my opening remarks, what we are missing in this picture is the North-South Ministerial Council because it cannot meet at the moment. Even when the Executive was in place, there was very limited engagement with it from some of the Ministers. It is good to see one of these major projects being delivered by Waterways Ireland, a North-South body. Tourism Ireland is centrally involved in the project that Mr. Duffy was just talking about between the Wild Atlantic Way and the Causeway Coastal Route. As I mentioned, hopefully InterTradeIreland can be part of a project in the enterprise area. I think there is a piece in this about using this period, even when the North-South Ministerial Council is not meeting, to support that aspect of the agreement and, in particular, the North-South bodies.

I agree with the Deputy's point on the AICRI. I think there can sometimes be a feeling that the research of the North-South research programme is a bit esoteric and up there, so it is very good to hear the Deputy's comments. Indeed, there are a number of cancer projects that have been funded through the North-South research programme. There is a really interesting project about the Atlantic coast, essentially led by University of Ulster Magee Campus and NUI Galway, running all the way down to Limerick. I think we will start to see more and more of that coming through, but the cancer piece is very important.

I also agree with the Deputy on further education. In fact, when I answered Senator Ó Donnghaile, I should have added that there is engagement from the further education institutions in there as well. Interestingly, to knit across with the research, one of the points highlighted by the ESRI in its report on education systems was the importance of further education on the island, in particular as we look at improving educational attainment and achievement, which is a particular challenge in Northern Ireland. Further education has a real role to play there. The report highlighted that this would be a place where the two systems could look at countering educational disadvantage. I very much accept the Deputy's point.

On capital and current funding, the shared island fund is a capital fund. We have tried to be creative with it, if I could use that word. For example, with the local authority development fund, ultimately, most of the projects would be capital projects. We just have to be quite careful on that. One of the mechanisms we have used in the absence of the Executive is looking at schemes that are currently in place in this jurisdiction, and whether there are ways that we can roll them out on an all-island basis, such as the Creative Ireland programme and the community climate action programme. They are probably a little bit on the border between capital and current funded projects, but we are trying to keep them capital funded. The whole point about keeping the shared island fund in capital funding is to create a significant impact. Perhaps Mr. Duffy wants to add to that, because he is very across the work on the funds.