Conor Murphy (Sinn Fein)

I thank the witnesses for the presentation. I agree with a lot of the points raised already. I do not have the time to go back into some of them. To make a quick point on the tourism sharing of that project on the north coast and the Wild Atlantic Way, a discussion is under way about tourism branding across the island that I hope will move forward at pace because it will make a significant impact.

I have an observation about the two areas outlined as priorities. One is to put a sustained strategic focus on the future of the whole island and the other to build a reconciled future together. Both are extremely important areas of work. Regarding funding and some of the areas outlined, it seems the unit is more active in the latter context concerned with the reconciliation work. As I said, that is important. The national development plan from the Government, though, seems to contain a lot more strategic work. I think there is an opportunity for the shared island unit to do more in that area. The Taoiseach was in front of the finance committee some months ago.

I asked him some questions about more strategic use in terms of where the island is going and that the long-term future of the island be underpinned by investment through the shared island fund. He agreed with that. I would, therefore, like to see more projects in that space, such as the funding of Magee College and the train services others have mentioned. These are extremely important, as are the entrepreneur programmes. They are all important but there is much work to be done, particularly in areas such as health. There is an actual impact of a disjoint in health services North and South. I had one particular case in my own area in County Armagh where a woman had to travel to London for cancer treatments, which meant three weeks' absence from a young family. The same treatment was available at St. James's Hospital in Dublin, which is probably an hour and ten minutes from her house. She unfortunately died in England in the absence of her family during one of the treatment processes. The family have been distraught by the fact that she had to undergo a traumatic journey by plane or boat to get to a service that was available within an hour's drive from her house. More work could be done in relation to the health aspect of that. I know there is dialogue between the trusts in the North and the health authorities in the South, but that could be more focused.

The research is really excellent, and Ms Deane has described where it has been underpinned and come out the other side in terms of a joint policy. We need to see more of that otherwise we just get documents that sit on a shelf. As excellent as they are, they become areas more of academic interest than practical working interest. Particularly in areas like health, we would need to see that type of work being done. There has not been the full spend in a number of years in relation to that. I would be interested to know why that is. Some of these infrastructure projects and some of these other projects the unit is involved in might have longer running periods than otherwise were anticipated but does that leave her more scope in some of the areas I have been suggesting for a more strategic focus into things like the economy, shared services, barriers to cross-Border mobility as Deputy Maxwell raised, and people who have to work North to South and South to North? Is there more that can be done in that area? Those are just some of the questions. The work that has been done to date is excellent but I would like to see more emphasis on the strategic focus into the future in terms of the fund.