Dr. Alan Barrett:

I will give a quick response before I hand over to colleagues on the more difficult questions. The Senator's introductory remarks were fascinating, and let me describe why. She started with the narrative of the old days of when the roads were terrific in Northern Ireland and terrible in the South. There was a sense of relative living standards. I touched on this notion earlier. The work Dr. McGuinness and Dr. Bergin did shows the living standards issue has completely flipped on its head. The numbers have moved in a different direction. It also comes as a surprise to many people. The Senator spoke about the work of the ESRI being good, fact-driven, non-ideological and all those things we appreciate. We are used to hearing that about our work in the Republic but when we ventured into some of these issues in Northern Ireland, in all truth, it was fascinating to see some of the kickback.

There was a sense that a group of people simply would not accept this was the case in a range of issues from living standards to educational failure. It was a bit of a new experience and a good character-building experience for the ESRI that we might have to be more proactive in saying this is what the data say.

That brief meander was an effort to give my colleagues some time to think of answers to Senator McGreehan's more difficult questions. We will see now how successful they have been.