Mr. Andrew Brownlee:

The Senator asked me about the agenda for the joint meeting. I saw that last week. I am wracking my brain. I think one of the items for discussion is the shared island fund of €800 million and trying to get a joint proposal together on that. There is talk about those joint apprenticeship programmes, which are very interesting. Again, if we get that model up and running, there is no reason that cannot be mainstreamed throughout. There is also work on joint staff development so the lecturers in the Northern Ireland colleges and the lecturers or teachers or instructors in the ETBs come together to upskill in new technologies, AI and things like that. That is what I remember, but I can clarify what is on the agenda.

On support for the Traveller community to access education, we do a lot here and we fund community groups through our community education programme through initiatives like the reach fund. It is an interesting question about the cross-Border aspect to that. I cannot claim we have done anything, but it would certainly be worth looking at whether we could extend it. We try to ensure community education is planned on an all-island basis, so we will look into that, if that is okay.