Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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Go raibh míle maith agat, a Órfhlaith. Go raibh maith ag na finnéithe ar fad as ucht an cur i láthair iontach sin. Bhí sé an-suimiúil. I had a prior engagement to which I had to attend so I apologise for missing a bit at the start of the meeting but I thank the witnesses for the details that have been given. There is a lack of data, North and South, on certain issues but if there was any comparative analysis around housing, health, education, standards of living, and infrastructure in the North and South, I would be very interested in seeing where we could access that data. Much of the discussion has been about the funding mechanism of the North of Ireland and obviously we have a situation there where budgets are experiencing massive holes. The Northern Minister for Education, Michelle McIlveen, indicated that there was a €750 million hole in the education budget, which, given the circumstances, means cutbacks to that level. The focus is on where those holes are and what costs they will result in in the delivery of services in the North. Obviously, the Barnett formula is a disaster for the North but in Scotland, for example, they raised approximately 20% of their funds through local taxation and revenue powers. In Wales, it is about 10%. In the North, it is only about 5% or 6% and indeed, everybody is scratching around now to see can they increase hospital car parking fees, water rates, etc. Does it not make sense that we start to focus on the evolving revenue raising powers from London to Belfast in the future?

Corporation taxes were mentioned. My understanding is that corporation tax is actually devolved and if we had a functioning parliament at Stormont, there is a possibility the Executive there could decide on corporation taxes.

Do not get me wrong; I think the South's corporation tax rate is still too low at 15%. However, we need to look at equalising taxes across the Border. I have listened to people state that corporation tax is not a silver bullet and does not work everywhere but it does work in many places too. Many places have had some fall in corporation taxes with some significant increase in the level of taxes that are generated. Given the fact that the North is probably a lower cost base economy now in terms of rent and wages, equalising those corporation taxes would make the North far more accessible and attractive for international investment.

Has much work been done on individual synergies that could be achieved between North and South? There is much duplication in the delivery of services. We have two education systems, two healthcare systems and many other areas, such as agriculture, are delivered in duplicate form. We have the likes of Daisy Hill Hospital , Newry, which is under fierce pressure in terms of losing key health services. On the other hand, we have Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, which is less than an hour down the road and is hammered in terms of pressure. Is there some way that the Southern State could provide a certain amount of money to enable Daisy Hill to operate to its proper level, while allowing patients in the Cavan, Monaghan and Louth region to also access the hospital for services? Is there anything like that on a specific micro-level being done in terms of research?