Professor Pascal McKeown:

The European Union is very focused on border areas. Special funds are available for the development of services but it is very competitive and it is difficult to get that kind of funding through special EU projects. There are areas where patients end up travelling five hours to get to Dublin for treatment, whereas if they were able to go to a local hospital in Northern Ireland, there would be an opportunity to provide services there. The heart attack centre at Altnagelvin hospital provides for patients in Donegal. There are other ways in which we could treat patients using the shared island approach. A lot of funding has gone into the shared island initiative. We would advocate for more money to be made available through that fund. That would be something we could use.