Mr. Glyn Roberts:

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to present. I am sorry I cannot be with the committee in person. I am the chief executive of Retail NI. We represent more than 2,000 independent retailers, wholesalers and suppliers to our sector. In fact, we have become a supply chain organisation in our own right because we now actively work with many small agrifood businesses developing their routes to market with our retail and wholesale members.

My role as one of the three core organisations of Trade NI is to outline our prosperity plan which the committee members have received a copy of. First, the three organisations are not here to talk about our past or our problems. We want to talk about the potential of our region. Despite the political situation we are well and truly open for business. As we meet I am encouraged that progress seems to have been made in returning devolution following the talks in Hillsborough this week. I know we have still some way to go in all of this but I hope that this week there has been progress made to a restored Assembly, Executive and cross-Border bodies.

This year is a very special year in which we remember and celebrate 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement. One of the things I observed was that while it was good to celebrate how far we have come in the last 25 years what we now need to focus on is the next 25 years for our region and for our island. We have had a peace process and an ongoing political process. The central message in our plan is that we now need a prosperity process. That is why we believe that the big, bold plan we have presented today can identify some of the solutions. We launched this plan at the House of Commons with the Secretary of State earlier in the year and in Dublin with the Tánaiste at Iveagh House. Our event at Westminster was one of the biggest ever Northern Ireland events with more than 80 embassies present. The event we did with the Tánaiste a few months ago brought a very significant Northern Ireland business delegation. Many were small businesses that perhaps had not done much in the way of cross-Border or all-Ireland trade in the past .

Whilst our report recognises how far we have come in the last 25 years it is about charting a path to greater economic success over the next decade and beyond. In many respects it has elements of a draft programme for government for a restored Assembly and Executive. We have been very clear in everything we do that we want Northern Ireland to be the very best place in the UK and Ireland to locate, start and scale up a business. Our report identifies key strengths of the Northern Irish economy and how these can be leveraged to deliver greater economic growth and prosperity in future decades for local communities and businesses. We want to see a restored Stormont but a restored Stormont that is not what it was in the past. We want a Stormont which actually does stuff, things like a budget and a programme for government and does not collapse every few years. We also need to make sure we fix our planning system to facilitate speedier construction of major infrastructure projects, invest in our educational institutions and ensure that our workforce for the future has the right skills and competencies.

We have vast untapped potential in Northern Ireland. We have a skilled workforce and a steady pipeline of talent from our higher and further education institutions, dual market access, as Mr. Kelly stated, and emerging clusters in new industries such as tech, cybersecurity and health and life sciences.

Northern Ireland's journey to prosperity is not just beginning. It is a journey that businesses in our region have been on for many years. Despite the challenges that existed and the disconnect in external perceptions businesses have demonstrated extraordinary levels of resilience and determination to make things better. We need to build on that positive momentum. The Windsor accord gives Northern Ireland opportunities to be the gateway to the European Union and to be a truly global-facing region and above all else to make Northern Ireland an ecosystem of innovation. We will not achieve any of this unless we have a restored Executive and cross-Border bodies.

In conclusion, in terms of North-South we need to reimagine and re-energise the North-South agenda. Our business community is the key pathway to do this. In many respects in developing the North-South we almost have to take the politics out of it. We have members who trade the length and breadth of this island every day. We make the points today not for political reasons but to make our shared island a peaceful and prosperous one.

There are two immediate opportunities that we can identify to make that step change. The €1.1 billion PEACEPLUS fund launched in September has been delivering economic regeneration as one of its core objectives and the all-island strategic rail review that has the objective of the delivery of the 200 km intercity service connecting Belfast, Dublin and Cork. If we look at what could be a big game-changing infrastructure project for this island, having a high-speed rail service between Belfast, Dublin and Cork would surely be one and move us towards a much more connected island. I thank the Chair for his time.