Professor Deirdre Heenan:

No, I am not saying that at all. There are specific healthcare projects that may be on mental health or cancer and they are valuable in themselves. However, this is a different issue. This is about cross-Border collaboration. This about a policy agenda across the island. It is a very different project to, for example, looking at how AI might impact on our cancer outcomes, which is a worthwhile project. The shared island unit has to say that part of its remit is to have a scoping study and set out robust information for all interested parties. We now have the encompass system in the North. It is a digital healthcare system where we are able to produce information that we could not produce before. We had some teething issues but we have moved on.

I agree with the member's assessment that two Ministers cannot get together and decide that this is a priority, given that they are probably the most overstretched Ministers of any Government portfolio. This has to happen at the Good Friday Agreement level - at the intergovernmental level - where there is a decision to say both jurisdictions would benefit from a different approach. It is about an ambition to do better with what we have and that can only be underpinned by a political agreement. It seems very difficult.

I had a wry smile when the member said that we would not want to go too fast. I do not think that we could go any slower on this. We have been talking and talking about it. When one speaks to clinicians in Daisy Hill Hospital and Altnagelvin Area Hospital, they are deeply frustrated. It is not as though they are saying we should not push this agenda forward. They are saying it is difficult for them to raise their head above the parapet to say there are better ways of doing this and that may involve more cross-Border-----