Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

With regard to the North-South Ministerial Council and trade matters, one of the great hopes and legacies of having a peace process is the win-win situation for both sides. This is as true for Border regions and areas as it is for any other part of the island. Trying to achieve fiscal harmonisation is difficult. The powers with regard to this matter reside in Westminster as far as Northern Ireland is concerned. To have differentiated tax systems within one jurisdiction is difficult to achieve. Over a period of time, a number of reports have been done on this matter and a number of inquiries and examinations have also been made. My attitude is that we must find those areas in which we can co-operate practically and park those areas in which we find it difficult to make headway. We should deal with the situation as it is rather than how we would like it to be.

There have been flows between the North and South in both directions at various times. The real problem has been the very strong fluctuation in the exchange rate between sterling and the euro. The appreciation of the euro against sterling brings about serious issues for us in terms of spend and flows of trade and consumer traffic. We must do what we can in our own interest bearing in mind that we are members of the euro area. Our interests have been accentuated in recent times in terms of representing a zone of stability for an open economy like ours. A stronger currency and stronger Central Bank to help us deal with the monetary issues that have arisen in recent months and years have been critical to our ability to cope with the circumstances that have presented themselves to us in recent times.

We must address the issues of becoming more competitive and reducing our costs as part of dealing with the problem that has arisen. I hope we will see far more stable exchange rate movements as soon as possible to avoid the distortion that can take place on either side of the Border, depending on the value of the currencies. We must continue to contend with this. Rather than pointing to this as a reason for division between us, we should acknowledge there are macro-economic circumstances that we cannot control and that we should, therefore, get on with practical co-operation on training, upskilling and, as the Deputy suggested, using the regional approach. For example, the North West Gateway Initiative between Donegal and Derry has considerable untapped potential.

In other Border areas, we must address the need to overcome the legacy of the past, which reinforced the partitionist mentality that it was a win-lose situation or a zero sum game. We must create win-win situations and can do so by emphasising and pointing to areas of co-operation in the delivery of health and education services and public services generally. We must also emphasise trade and investment and the benefit that accrues from creating employment in the regions in question, such that people can go across borders once job opportunities are created. These are the areas we must emphasise. Let the problems that we cannot solve in the medium term not detract from the enthusiasm we need to show in respect of others, in respect of which we can make a lot more progress more quickly.

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