Dr. John Bradley:

I am very honoured by the committee's invitation to the meeting to discuss issues related to the all-Ireland economy. Starting in the late 1980s, I have worked on many aspects of North-South economic and business relations and the island economy. My mentor in this area was the late Sir George Quigley who, together with Dr. Liam Connellan of the then Irish Business and Employers Confederation, IBEC, first established the notion of all-Ireland as a legitimate area of research and policy action.

I guess the main reason I am before the committee is that in 2012, I co-authored with my American colleague, Professor Michael Best, a report for the Centre for Cross Border Studies entitled Cross Border Economic Renewal: Re-thinking Regional Policy in Ireland. During this work we spent time getting to know the cross-Border area, talking to stakeholders and visiting a series of entrepreneurial companies. The lessons that we learned highlighted the weaknesses of strategic thinking in the area of regional development in both jurisdictions and the urgent need to join up thinking on regional development policy with enterprise development policy in areas of the island characterised by peripherality, rural demographics and the complication of the policy fault line between North and South. I look forward to discussing these issues with the committee.