Mr. Martin Robinson:

We work through our own colleagues but also with both Departments and indeed the agencies north and south to promote our programmes to ensure we have outreach to businesses. That would be right across the country, including those areas that are perhaps more peripheral and not on the main Dublin–Belfast corridor. We have had strong success in that regard. We work closely with a network of providers across the country, north and south, which promote our programmes and actively try to develop a pipeline of businesses able to take advantage of the many trade programmes we provide. Through our Acumen programme, we can support a company with 50% of the costs in taking on a new sales resource.

We find this is very valuable to businesses. To give an example, a County Cork-based manufacturer of milk cooling tanks for the dairy industry, which was a single-product company selling exclusively in the Irish market, recognised the potential of the cross-Border market as an opportunity it could not afford to ignore. With our support it has brought on board a full-time sales person who went into the market, shook hands with people and made introductions. As a direct result of this work, it was able to appoint three new dealers in Northern Ireland. It has given the company a platform. We are speaking about GB and this company was given a platform to access the GB market. This company saw its selling into Northern Ireland grow in a short period of time from 1% to 16%. It has also opened new market opportunities for it in GB and beyond.

With regard to Deputy Wynne's question on connectivity and infrastructure, they are not directly in our remit. Deputy Wynne is right that infrastructure is a key issue. We know it is a key enabler of productivity and business growth throughout the country. We welcome any plan to look at improving the transport infrastructure throughout the island to address some of the peripheralities of some of the regions, and to increase the frequency and flow of the traffic and trade which can come at the back of a robust and strong network. We would very much welcome any plan to upgrade trade infrastructure, such as the rail network.