Dr. Stephen Farry:

We in the Alliance Party recognise that the all-island economy is significantly underdeveloped and we see significant scope for improvement in that regard over the coming years. That can happen irrespective of where things go on the political and constitutional discussions that are also happening.

The Chair mentioned the NSMC from a governance point of view. In my experience as a Minister in Northern Ireland in the distant past, I always found the NSMC to be very formulaic. Like any intergovernmental body, it involved a very short meeting with the UK, more or less worked out in advance, but the areas under discussion were very piecemeal and project based as opposed to looking at a broader thematic analysis of where things could go. There is significant room for improvement in that regard. The NSMC was often the first casualty whenever political instability happened in Northern Ireland, more frequently than some of the other institutions that were later to fall.

One of the potential barriers to the development of the all-island economy relates to investment. I appreciate that Mr. O'Brien and Mr. D'Arcy have discussed the potential for investment to be more evenly distributed throughout the island and how we can go about doing that, but to what extent do the different models of incentive for investment become a problem? In the South, there is a combination of a heavy emphasis on skills and education alongside corporation tax. I would always say skills and education are the most important aspect and that the corporation tax is a further incentive beyond that. In Northern Ireland, by contrast, we have growing deficits in our education and skills investment. In the context of the current budget, we are probably not in a position to focus on corporation tax for some time and I imagine there will be a wider discussion on that down the line in Northern Ireland.

We also look more widely, with envy, at the different financial circumstances in the South, which has a very significant budget surplus at present. In Northern Ireland, we are running through a huge financial crisis.

On some of the barriers that have emerged from Brexit, the Windsor Framework provides a particular advantage in terms of the dual-market access for goods, but Brexit interferes with the service economy and things like labour mobility on the island for those who are not Irish. To what extent is a dealignment in services and labour mobility a potential barrier in determining how far things can go with the all-island economy? To what extent will problems with the mutual recognition of professional qualifications be an issue?

With regard to mindsets, how do we get both jurisdictions thinking about infrastructure investment, having regard to bigger economies of scale? I do not think it is fully happening yet in the South, and it is certainly not in Northern Ireland. Regardless of whether we are talking about the physical infrastructure or health infrastructure, we are still seeing it solely from a Northern Ireland perspective at times. I would welcome comments on those points.