Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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594. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the State bodies under his remit which have developed memorandums of understanding with his counterpart in Northern Ireland with regard to the efficient delivery of services on the island of Ireland; if he has carried out a cost-benefit analysis of the development of further memorandums of understanding; the details of the cost-benefit analysis; and the new memorandums of understanding he will be creating between State bodies under his remit through the lifetime of this Government. [14278/16]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Of the state bodies under the remit of my Department, the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) and the Utility Regulator for Northern Ireland signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2014, which outlines how they can maintain and facilitate effective and mutually beneficial co-operation and collaboration between their respective organisations in Ireland and Northern Ireland, details of which are available at the following link on the CER website: Memorandum of Understanding between Utility Regulator N. Ireland and Commission for Energy Regulation.

In respect of Invasive species, IFI have had significant working relationships with the Invasive Species Ireland programme a cross border body set up by the national parks and wildlife service (NPWS) and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA). In this regard a number of species alerts for a range of aquatic invasive species, including Asian clam (Corbicula fluminea) were produced. These are available on the invasive species Ireland website (). More recently IFI have engaged in dialogue, and shared information with the Lough’s Agency in relation to the discovery of the Asian clam in the River Foyle.

There are no new Memoranda of Understandings in development or planned and for this reason, no cost benefit data analysis has been prepared in this area.