Mr. John Greer:

Ms McIntyre touched on the fact that the programmes have a wide-ranging impact, which are the ambitions set down by the Commission. We are output-based, so the Commission has a set of outputs the projects have to achieve but I think we deliver far more than that. One project we are funding under the health call is being led by the Royal National Institute of Blind People, RNIB, and is essentially connecting people who are blind in rural communities with one other. This both provides connection for the people on the ground who are suffering blindness and provides bridges with the community groups that are acting as a conduit to put these people together. The important point is that it has a very dramatic effect on their lives on a day-to-day basis. It changed their lives both for the duration of the programme and for a period thereafter.

One of the bigger things is the projects in INTERREG that are focused on research and innovation. These have very singular outputs looking at the number of PhDs that are produced. Their impact is far wider than that because we are funding investments in creating superclusters round renewable energy. They are providing opportunities to create PhD students, as well as opportunities for employment. They are building an intellectual property, IP, base in Northern Ireland and the Republic. That has massive impacts in respect of employment opportunities and the attractiveness of the region for foreign direct investment. The commercialisation of the intellectual property has real-world effects on developing solutions that people will use on a daily basis. One of our projects, the border and regions airway training hub, BREATH, project is led by the Dundalk Institute of Technology and is focusing on the area of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD. COPD has a much higher rate of prevalence in Ireland and BREATH is developing solutions to address that illness and then commercialising them. Not only is the project providing research opportunities, investing in the intellectual property base and providing jobs for people, but it actually is addressing a condition that is specifically prevalent within our country.