Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our witnesses who provide very valuable material for the work of the committee. On Professor Doyle's introductory remarks about the poor performance of Northern Ireland with regard to foreign direct investment, some of us have advocated that IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland should be merged with Invest Northern Ireland and the other agencies there. If foreign direct investment comes to Northern Ireland, it is good for our State. We are in an all-Ireland economy now. Is there merit in trying to have more cross-Border bodies? I know we are in a political situation now where neither the Executive, the Assembly nor the North-South Ministerial Council are functioning, unfortunately. In the situation of the institutions back up and running that it is hoped we will have in the autumn, should we be pursuing the idea of having an industry development and enterprise policy based on all-Ireland enterprise agencies? I mentioned this idea in the past and it was shot down by the members of the unionist community in particular. However, having done trade missions in the past in government, we always had Northern Ireland-based companies with us. It was always beneficial from our point of view and from their point of view. It is disappointing to see how low the level of foreign direct investment is. I accept the point regarding graduates, but we can learn from the Intel experience and what the IDA achieved in that respect.

Regarding further education, I recall very well that Northern Ireland had a much more advanced and structured further education sector before we developed one. Ours has been developed since, I believe, the early 1990s, and today, thankfully, we have a whole network of further education colleges throughout the country, which leads to progression to third level. It is disappointing to hear about the situation in Northern Ireland. The message from the three witnesses was that lack of education attainment is a huge barrier to Northern Ireland progressing. All the witnesses are working in learning and teaching environments. From their research and from their colleagues, are there particular initiatives that are needed at primary and second level to try to ensure children and young people are not leaving school without a much better level of educational attainment?