Mr. Padraic White:

I will cherry-pick some of the questions on which I think I am competent. Senator Cullinane asked how effective are the North-South ministerial bodies. Having been engaged in different arenas, my sense is that the political momentum both North and South has declined. I take the example of the N2-A5. At one stage that road was a major political priority and the Government was prepared to commit €400 million of our money to the northern section of it but now it hardly figures. I do not detect any political momentum in regard to it. Unfortunately, that is a fact of life at the moment, which is regrettable.

In terms of fiscal powers for the North, the one on which the business sector and the Governments have been campaigning is the right to lower the corporation tax rate to 12.5%, which is the rate in the Republic. I personally am a strong advocate for an all-island economy. In a way, one of the real tests of that is whether one is prepared to support a 12.5% rate of corporation tax on both parts of this island, and I am.

I am also a strong advocate of co-operation between the agencies, North and South, in foreign direct investment in the interests of the whole economy. However, it is an area on which people speak with forked tongues. It is the last area that is effectively untouched by North-South co-operation because in both jurisdictions there is a highly protective attitude towards it, in addition to a lot of undeclared attitudes. I have always been unequivocal on the need for much greater co-operation between the investment agencies on both sides, in particular in the interests of some of the Border areas. That is my position on the matter.

In the private sector, the work with InterTradeIreland on the SME sector in the North and in the Republic is helping the evolution of the private sector. In a way, there is no magic bullet. One has foreign direct investment, which comes in with its intellectual know-how and its markets. There is no short cut to growing one's indigenous companies. It is painful. Much work is being done. Mr. Aidan Gough referred to schemes which are part of the process. We miss the co-operation, in particular in the Border areas, between Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland where collaborative work across the Border looking at clusters of like-minded industries with a positive attitude to collaboration in an area of weak urban structure could achieve a lot.

Parts of the ecosystem for emerging SMEs are being put in place in the North. I am involved in the Bank of Ireland kernel capital growth fund, which invests between £250,000 and up to £2 million in emerging companies in Northern Ireland. We have invested in six emerging companies in the past year. They are the classic emerging companies that Northern Ireland needs that are not dependent on the local market, which are essentially global companies.