Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is good to have the ESRI here today to discuss this as part of our constitutional future work that we are doing. We have divided it up into different themes and this is our economic section. Last week, we considered pensions and welfare and how that might look as well.

I will focus my contributions on the opportunities for the future but it is important to acknowledge all the work that the ESRI has done and to have it on record, such as its study on cross-Border trade in services, enhancing the attractiveness of the island of Ireland to high-value FDI, foreign direct investment, the analysis of the primary care systems, North and South, and the comparisons of education and training systems and the lessons for policy. These are only some of the studies that the ESRI has done. It is important to have this work done as it informs the debate.

My first question is on those reports. Has the ESRI the ability to choose to look, for example, at the challenges and opportunities of integrating and unifying the systems, such as the economic challenges, North and South, or could we play a role as a committee in recommending to Government what we need to do to move things forward to envisage how things might be in the future?