Dr. Alan Barrett:

The ESRI funding model in a sense drives the work that we do. To have a clear understanding, I will spend 15 seconds on it. Our annual turnover is €10 million, but 70% of that is essentially driven by project-related work that is directly commissioned. A total of 70% is a substantial proportion of our budget. We get a grant of €3 million every year from the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and that provides us with some scope to do work. Some of the work that we mentioned earlier, for example, the work that Dr. McGuinness and Dr. Bergin did on living standards, North and South, came out of our own resources. It is difficult to think in terms of programmes of work unless there is a funding stream behind it. That is the difficulty. As the Deputy can imagine, across the issues that ESRI is researching, such as healthcare and climate, it can be tricky. No doubt we are always very responsive to the work and the suggestions that are made to the extent that it is almost forward looking. There are measures such as the national risk register where one is trying to think ahead about what are the big challenges coming down the line and what are the sort of issues that we should be thinking about. No doubt this will be a very significant issue. Whether or not there is a border poll, this is vast. It is a sensible national thing to be doing to be planning. On some of the issues that the Deputy mentioned, which Dr. McGuinness touched on earlier, the practical questions that arise from the integrations of various systems are phenomenally complex issues. Without a shadow of a doubt, much preparatory work will have to happen. ESRI would be happy to play a role in doing that. However, as I said, we would probably need to have a direction and a funding line to make that happen.