Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party)
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I thank all the witnesses for coming today. In some ways they are coming to us too early and in other ways it is quite late. Deputy Conway-Walsh spoke about the numbers of people who feel they do not have a connection with the North. However, this should not be just about creating links with Northern Ireland; there needs to be something in it for each student. That is the reason students choose a course. They do not choose it because they feel it would be great to have a connection with the South of Ireland or with the North of Ireland. What is in it for an individual student is unclear? That may be the biggest barrier here. Do the witnesses have any comments on that? We can get the structures right to make it easier to apply through the CAO, UCAS or whatever. However, unless we get that piece right, we will not move much further.

My next question is about teachers. Are teachers given sufficient support? Is that not just creating more of a burden for them without the backup when they might be, particularly through career guidance, having conversations with students about possible opportunities, from our point of view, north of the Border? I would say anecdotally that students are not made aware of what is available.

How many people from the South go to England, Wales and Scotland? Obviously, the numbers of students going to Northern Ireland are incredibly low.

I would really like to see a comparison with the other countries to establish if there is something unique to this problem that needs to be addressed.