Mr. Chris Hazzard:

Today's meeting has been very interesting. I wish to put on record my thanks for the comments at the start on population and that there is a long way to go to even reach the population levels of before. That is a welcome message that people need to hear. It can never be said enough.

I wish to touch on a different yet connected issue around the big issue of constitutional change, which is the need to decarbonise our economies, North and South, and then the big change that happens when we continue to build the all-Ireland economy and head into that constitutional change. It is a simple matter of fact that climate change and the continued breakdown of the natural world do not recognise borders. There is much more we need to do right now. In the time ahead, it is something that will have to develop. A key point around this just transition and moving away from a carbon-dense economy is engaging with workers and having a dialogue with them at all times in order that they are very much part of it and have a stake in the transition in the economy. Will Mr. McDonnell give us a feel for what dialogue or engagement his organisation has with businesses and workers regarding the just transition and decarbonisation and where that is headed? Tied into that, as has been alluded to by a few people, is the point that we have a highly regionally unbalanced economy, both North and South. This presents great challenges when it comes to decarbonisation, as there are already communities that lack services and facilities and endure a prosperity disparity in large parts of our country. How do we ensure businesses in rural Ireland do not fall even further behind during this process? It is also part of the talk about Irish unity on the Belfast and Dublin economic corridor and so on. How do we ensure that rural Ireland in the west, south west, north west, the midlands etc. gets a fair deal out of this going forward?