Ms Aingeal O?Donoghue:

I thank Deputy Brendan Smith for his reference to other officials. Mr. Duffy and I are just part of what is a small but highly committed and, frankly, innovative team. I appreciate Deputy Brendan Smith’s words. The team is working. They are the ones who deliver the dialogues and who do so much of our engagement. I am pleased that he mentioned them. I will be sure to tell them that he did.

On local authorities in the Border area, we hear the message about spanning the entire Border. It is not just about one or the other. We know ICBAN well. I reiterate that we are engaging with all of them. We see them all as key partners. As well as engaging with the regional groupings, we have met with some of the local authorities on a one-on-one basis, on both sides of the Border. Again, we are conscious of the importance of that. There is probably now a piece for the local authorities. Effectively, they need to come forward with concrete proposals. We have had very good engagement. We are happy to be as helpful as we can be in that.

However, there is a point at which they need to come forward with concrete proposals. My message to members of the committee who have been talking to us about this is to take that message back to them. For shared Ireland funding, they need to be capital proposals and they must have a North-South dimension, preferably but not necessarily always with a Northern funding partner. We would not always ask that they start by being able to point to a Northern funding partner as well. Those are some of the parameters and Mr. Duffy might want to give a few more. The next phase for the local authorities is to move to that more concrete proposal phase and we will try to support them through that and definitely looking at all aspects. The point about enterprise centres is something that has arisen in other contexts as well.

Sometimes we refer to higher education. It is safe to say that when we talk about it in this context we always mean further and higher education. Again, that would be very much the message we get from the region. In terms of third level education infrastructure in the north east, and the Senator mentioned this about DkIT, the commitments regarding provision in the north west are the Irish Government's commitments under New Decade, New Approach, and come from a particular political set of circumstances and concerns. That is why they have been foregrounded. The research programme will help with the collaborations across the higher education network, but we are very open to talking to others. Mr. Duffy has possibly met with DkIT, but I am not sure. When I did this work previously many years ago, I went with the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, to DkIT, not surprisingly. At that point it had a very innovative green approach to some of its energy as well. Again, we understand that and we are very much open to it. I should make the point that the issue of further and higher education provision in the north west has had a particularly difficult and political past, which the members are familiar with, and that is why it has been very much to the front. However, that is not to say others cannot come in as well.