Ms Émer Deane:

I will start with apprenticeships. The Department of further and higher education is looking at that area at the moment to see whether it can develop a shared island proposal. It is working with SOLAS, the agency with responsibility for it in the South, and with its Northern Ireland counterpart. It is in the programme for Government as an objective. Earlier, I mentioned the good work PEACE is doing in that space. We will see all of that great skills agenda work begin next year through the PEACE funding.

That brings me to the question on PEACE funding. PEACE is completely separate from us but we work closely with it and share a lot of information with it, as it does with us, around its priorities and the kind of work it is doing. The PEACE programme overall is worth just over €1 billion. It will be a very important funder in terms of the rail the Chair mentioned. The rolling stock will be funded through PEACE. We will look to see where we can bring additionality to what the Department of Transport is doing anyway in the rail space. It is doing stuff with the European Investment Bank, the PEACEPLUS programme and with us on the hourly service. I will take away what the Chair said about the overall hours.

The Chair also mentioned arts and culture. As well as the shared home place, which as I said to the Senator we hope will touch every town and county on the island, there is also the money that was allocated this year to arts and culture. The Minister is developing a programme that will see more interaction between our national cultural institutions and their northern counterparts: cross-Border touring for theatre, and more programming by Coimisiún na Meán in terms of what it is doing North and South. A whole suite of arts, culture and heritage programming was just announced in February and will start programming next year.

The civic society fund is operated by the Department of foreign affairs. It puts out a call, usually in the first quarter of the year - in spring - so the next call will go out at that point. It involves a very broad range of areas. In each case, an applicant in one jurisdiction partners with an applicant in the other jurisdiction to look for joint funding. That is the kind of civic society model, which is about building strategic partnerships. There is something there about the visibility, which goes back to previous questions. We might have a word with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to see how it could make sure that it is known about more broadly. I will take that away as well.

The total amount in the civic society fund will now be €9 million. It will go from €1 million a year to €2 million a year, with effect from next year. One of the other announcements by the Government in February was a doubling of the fund.