Mr. Chris Hazzard:

This has been a really informative and interesting meeting. I want to pick up on a few different points. Some of the questions I wanted to ask have already been asked so I will not repeat them. I will first touch on a point Senator Blaney raised about integrated education, on which Mr. Hetherington was going to get back to the committee with some figures. I will speak from my experience. I find that great stock is often placed on the hard facts of what is and is not an integrated school. I went to a large Catholic grammar school where about one third of the pupils were not actually Catholic. To a certain extent, it was effectively integrated. That is a growing trend. I find in this debate that we are sometimes a little blinded, speaking from Dublin, where more than 95% of the primary schools in this State are Catholic. In the North, Catholic schools account for approximately 40% of schools. It is the same with post-primary schools. In the North, between 25% and 29% of post-primary schools are Catholic. In this State, the figure is approaching 50%. We need to have a wider discussion about what integration is. In my constituency of south Down, there is a large state grammar school, which might be termed a Protestant grammar school. Again, approximately 40% of the pupils who go there are Catholic. The biggest problem is not the religious integration but the social integration. There is a large working-class Protestant estate quite close to that school. The kids from that estate do not go to the elite state grammar school. That is the problem. It is not the number of Catholics or Protestants; it is the social mix in our schools. I will go back to the point made about academic selection. That is where we have social class division. That is having the biggest impact on our schooling system. I thought it was worth stressing that point.

I have a question about infrastructure. I am speaking as the former Minister for Infrastructure in the Executive in 2016 and 2017. There was a list of priorities but Stormont did not have a capacity to borrow money. Our local councils in the North have better borrowing powers than Stormont. There are also low taxes, low wages and whatever else. There is not the capacity to deliver these schemes. All-Ireland rail and the rest of it have been mentioned. This is where we need to be looking now. What is the potential of something like a sovereign wealth fund to work with international partners? As a minister, I went to Beijing in China to talk to international partners about high-speed rail. That was not just Belfast to Dublin, but Derry to Belfast and Dublin to Cork. It is about the ability to open up the island. I think that is where the all-island rail review later this year has to look. We need to be able to work together North and South. How do we make the hinterland of Donegal more connected to Derry? In my part of the world, the east border region, Newry is one of the fastest growing urban centres on the island. How do we connect south Down, south Armagh, north Louth and right down?

I have another question in light of all that. I note Wales has a Future Generations Commissioner. If the witnesses were to find themselves in that position looking 50 years down the line, what are the most important measures we need to do now to make some of those things a reality? That is what we need to look at. Too often, we look at the next five years, if we are lucky, and not just at this year. We are talking about constitutional change in the next 50 years or whatever the case may be.

Today we have discussed issues such as infrastructure and mutual recognition of qualifications. What are the most important things we need to do now? Invest NI was mentioned. In south Down, when you talk to local businesses about their experiences dealing with Invest NI, you find its reputation is on the floor. People have nothing positive to say. I repeatedly hear that the only advice businesses hear from Invest NI is that they should relocate to Belfast. That is the shared experience of many businesses in one of the more peripheral areas of the North. There is maybe a consensus that Invest NI has run its course, and is now about to undergo a major reform in outlook and how it works.

Overall, what are the two or three key areas we need to look at? Some, for example, infrastructure, have been touched on today. If the witnesses were to find themselves in the seat of a future generations commissioner in Dublin, what two or three areas would they look at? I thank them again. This has been a very interesting meeting.