Ms Aingeal O?Donoghue:

Some of these are points to take away rather than for specific responses. I thank Senator Blaney for his comments on research. We think it is important. This year the ESRI will do four reports on social attitudes North and South, housing supply, student mobility on the island, and gender equality and the gender pay gap. The idea is this is an iterative programme to keep going.

We certainly do not want to find ourselves with a strategic rail review we cannot do anything with. I hear what the Senator is saying there.

On north-west education, I assure the Senator we have had extensive meetings with both Malachy O'Neill and Paul Hannigan. We continue to engage. They have a good structure in the north west involving not just universities but, to Deputy Smith's point, the further and higher education colleges and the employers. We are tapping into that in terms of looking at various initiatives that could help meet the needs of the north west.

On education exchange and children, it is very important but comes back to capital funding constraints on the shared island initiative. There are probably other places including, though they may kill me, my colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs through the reconciliation fund that are more in that space. We will take it away.

We are doing quite a bit of work on how there might be a role and a way we could support educational attainment and achievement in Northern Ireland. It is an area where, ultimately, an Executive is needed. You will not do something in the primary and secondary education area without an Executive as a partner. On the further and higher education you can because those institutions have greater autonomy.

I hear the Senator on the matter of the ferry.