Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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101. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the role his Department is playing in supporting, strengthening and expanding the areas of co-operation under the North-South Ministerial Council; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56947/25]

Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I ask about the role the Tánaiste and his Department are playing in supporting, strengthening and expanding the areas for co-operation under strand two of the Good Friday Agreement through the operation of the North-South Ministerial Council, which had its plenary meeting a few days ago.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Coincidentally, I have my North-South Ministerial Council pen with me as a reminder that we only had the meeting in Farmleigh a couple of days ago - on Friday, I think.

Since the restoration of the Good Friday Agreement institutions last year, there have been 31 meetings of the North-South Ministerial Council in plenary, institutional and sectoral formats. There has been a huge body of work in the roughly 18 months that the institutions have been back up and running. The most recent plenary meeting took place on Friday, 17 October in Farmleigh, hosted by the Irish Government. The meeting provided an opportunity for Ministers to discuss a wide range of issues on mutual issues of concern, including business and trade matters, infrastructure and investment co-operation and emergency planning and preparedness. How do we work better together on emergencies, be they the likes of the pandemics we had to deal with in the past, or Storm Éowyn and the lessons from that? How do we tackle gender-based violence on the island? That is a frequent topic we have quite rightly been considering in the last while and there is a lot of benefit in discussing that on an all-island basis too.

A meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council in institutional format also took place on the same day. That is, effectively, where I meet with the First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland on a number of institutional and cross-sectoral issues, including North-South bodies and EU-related matters. The outcomes of the meeting are detailed in full in the joint communiqué issued after the meeting and published on the North-South Ministerial Council website.

Reflecting on the work that has been undertaken over the past 18 months since the institutions have been back up and running, we have achieved multiple concrete outcomes from engagement in this framework, from health co-operation to environmental protection to improving co-ordination on disaster preparedness to investment in joint tourism infrastructure. It is fair to say the North-South Ministerial Council now has renewed momentum. I am fully committed, as is the Government, to ensuring that it continues to drive and facilitate strong North-South co-operation, supported in its work by the joint secretariat based in Armagh.

Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Tánaiste for that reply. For sure, the North-South Ministerial Council is one of the great institutions under the Good Friday Agreement to advance co-operation on the island and to embed that co-operation between the two administrations. In the communiqué that was published, there is the sheer fact that was pointed to with regard to the investment that has been made, such as the greenway investment and the soon-to-be-started Dublin to Derry air link. The A5 being stalled in the courts is obviously an issue but that is something I know the Government is fully behind.

I would love to see the Government and the Executive move to a place of expanding those areas already identified in the Good Friday Agreement. For example, here is the whole area of skills, apprenticeships and further education. We have launched an all-Ireland apprenticeship model in the past few days but I think there is a massive opportunity for us there in terms of attaining the all-Ireland labour market. We need to continue to deepen our co-operation in healthcare, specifically in the area of public health, which is complimentary to what the Tánaiste stated on emergency management. Then there is public transport and having a truly connected public transport system across both jurisdictions.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I fully agree with Deputy Moynihan. There are officially 12 areas of co-operation that cover a broad swathe of issues under the framework, including education, transport, healthcare and environment. However, I heard the former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern make the point before, and he is entirely correct on this, that it is important that the meetings are dynamic. It is important that people move beyond their speaking points to actually having discussions about the issues that affect the people on the island of Ireland. I must say that I feel that is happening more and more. I would use gender-based violence as an example of where we have been having really good conversations around how we can do more joint research in regard to this. Another example is mother and baby homes, where the Northern Ireland Executive and Stormont are considering issues around that. They are looking for, wanting and receiving co-operation and an exchange of information from this jurisdiction too. Storm Éowyn is another example. This is where it simply makes sense to practically co-operate, alongside all the formal, structured engagement, which is very important too. It is moving into a much better place.

Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I am encouraged to hear the Tánaiste talking about the importance of those dynamic co-operations. When you look at three strands of the Good Friday Agreement, while there have been stops and starts with strand one, the Executive and the Assembly in Northern Ireland, by its very nature strand two cannot operate without strand one being in place, so it is good to see that renewed momentum. The challenge for us now is to embed that co-operation so that it is not just about investment but, as the Tánaiste said, it is about joint co-operation, joint research design and joint strategy on advancing policy outcomes. I would hate for us to move to a space where it is all just around the investment and paying for stuff as opposed to - as the Tánaiste has rightly pointed out - the need for us to have that really proactive co-operation with regard to those conversations, and then being innovative and exploratory in how we deepen those 12 areas of co-operation. I refer to using education as a vehicle to advance skills connectedness and a joined-up skills strategy on the island, which then lays the foundation for an all-Ireland labour market.

Of the three strands of the agreement, strand three is probably the best embedded because of what happened with Brexit and the fact that it does not depend on the Executive and the Assembly. We need to have that same impetus and momentum behind strand two of the agreement as well.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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That is right. I welcome, as the Deputy did, the all-island apprenticeship formally launched by myself, the Taoiseach, the Minister, Deputy Lawless and Minister Archibald in Farmleigh on Friday. I thank and commend the Minister, Deputy Lawless for his work on this too.

As the Deputy also rightly said, all of this takes place in a context and the context is much better when the relationship between the two Governments in Ireland and the UK is good. That reset has assisted. It is also the case when the relationship between the UK and the EU is good. That relationship, and the reset taking place with regard to the agreement on a new framework and the benefits there will be for the island of Ireland and Northern Ireland, is helpful too.

It is about embedding, after stops and starts over the years, the good areas of co-operation that we have. We have a long pipeline of projects. The Deputy is right in that the investment should be seen as an enabler for conversations and co-operation rather than investment for investment's sake. I will give the Deputy one very quick example in the north west, where you are going to see the Magee campus in Derry developed. That is a huge opportunity for partnership with Letterkenny and Atlantic Technological University, ATU, and many benefits will come to the north west of the island from that.