Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. Their information was very helpful. It was interesting that they referred to Professor John Bradley saying there was limited communication over the years between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland that led to that lack of shared knowledge. Knowledge is everything if we are going to have an agreed Ireland. I have always felt that Ireland, despite having so many hundreds of thousands of people working in the UK, had a siloed effect too until we joined the EU. I genuinely believe those relationships between officials like the witnesses and the British brought along the Anglo-Irish Agreement and Good Friday Agreement. The fact that the UK is now out of Europe leaves a huge void. We have to work twice as hard to build up those relationships.

The witnesses gave figures of GNIper capitain Ireland being 51% higher than GDP per capitain Northern Ireland, which is stark. The proportion of individuals at risk of poverty in Northern Ireland Is 40.3%, compared with 8.9% in Ireland. A figure of 8.9% is far too high but these figures are quite worrying. In Ireland, people live for 1.4 years longer. That is hard to fathom. There are obviously many different issues, such as education and health, that contribute to this.

Regarding the reform of education and skills provision, what would the witnesses do? One thing we have noticed over the years is that somebody from a loyalist or unionist background has huge challenges in attaining third level education. Do the witnesses have any views on that? Is integrated education the way forward? Some 70% of the public support integrated education in Northern Ireland. Integrated education is currently just a little over 7%. I understand there are challenges. Do the witnesses have any views in that regard? I am delighted they talked about the regional colleges. I have seen them myself in Sligo and Letterkenny. The Atlantic Technological University is the first time there has been a university north of the Dublin-Galway line. Much more cross-Border work can be done now with the Magee campus. Many things are happening here. It shows that our involvement in the EU for more than 50 years has changed our economy.

Snce Brexit and since Covid, certainly in areas that would not be huge wealth generators in the north west where I come from, many upwardly mobile couples have moved into small towns and villages, which have had emigration since the foundation of the State or even before that. One can see something is happening now. Those people are not in the bigger towns or in Dublin but in the small towns and villages. They are part of the Tidy Towns committees and part of the football clubs. They want to get involved. Has that happened in Northern Ireland to the same extent that it has happened here in the past three or four years?

I thank the witnesses for informative and interesting information. I wish them well in their deliberations.