JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT debate -
Thursday, 19 Nov 2009

Centre for Cross-Border Studies: Discussion.

Chairman

Is cúis áthais dom fíor chaoin fáilte a chur roimh gach éinne anseo, go háirithe Ceannaire an SDLP, Mark Durkan MP. Is onóir mór dúinn go bhfuil sé anseo linn. Cuirim fáilte freisin roimh Andy Pollak, stiúrthóir an Centre for Cross Border Studies. Is í seo an deichiú bliain ó bunaíodh an ionad sin agus tréaslaím le Andy agus a fhoireann ar an obair iontach atá déanta acu ar feadh na blianta. Apologies have been received from Dr. Alaistair MacDonnell MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon MP, Eddie McGrady MP, Deputies Ruairí Quinn and Joe McHugh. I take this opportunity on behalf of the committee to warmly congratulate Deputy McHugh and his wife, Deputy Olwyn Enright, on the recent birth of their son and to wish the three of them every success in the future.

I remind members and those in the Visitors' Gallery to ensure that all mobile phones are switched off for the duration of the meeting as they cause interference, even on silent mode, with the recording equipment in the committee rooms.

The first item on the agenda is the minutes of the previous meeting. The minutes of the meeting of 29 October 2009 have been circulated. Are they agreed? Agreed.

I wish to introduce to the committee Ms Franca Ghelfi who has joined this committee's secretariat staff. She joins us from the Joint Committee on European Affairs and replaces Ms Jill Gray who has transferred to the Bills Office. I thank Ms Gray for her dedicated work during her time with the joint committee and I wish her every success in her new appointment.

I welcome Mr. Andy Pollak, director of the Centre for Cross-Border Studies. It has recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. I am very pleased the committee has the opportunity to discuss with its director its achievements in the first ten years. I am aware that Mr. Pollak's engagement in Northern Ireland dates back even further and many members will recall his work as co-ordinator of the independent citizens Opsahl Commission, into ways forward for Northern Ireland and which sat from 1992 to 1993.

The Centre for Cross-Border Studies is an independent university-based research and development centre which commissions, encourages and publishes research on cross-Border co-operation in all fields of society and the economy. It is widely regarded as having accumulated an unparalleled knowledge base on gaps in the areas and on potential and actual cross-Border co-operation.

Mr. Andy Pollak

I thank the Chairman and the committee for the honour of addressing them today. As the Chairman said in his introduction the Centre for Cross-Border Studies is one of the most significant and successful non-governmental organisations to have emerged from the Good Friday Agreement period. I thank in particular the European Union because without the special EU programmes body and the EU PEACE and INTERREG programmes, we would not have been born, let alone reached our tenth birthday in September.

The centre has a vision of stimulating new thinking and action on practical cross-Border co-operation and mainly in four areas, in research, information, training and networking. In the case of information, we run three major websites. The centre website is www.crossborder.ie; Border Ireland is a website providing the full range of information for researchers and policy-makers seeking to find out about activities, groups, organisations in an Irish cross-Border and North-South context. Perhaps the most interesting is the website Border People which is commissioned by the North-South Ministerial Council, with whom we share a building in Armagh. This website provides practical information for those moving across the Border to live, to work, to study, or to retire. It provides information about everything from tax to job-seeking to health, to banking, to housing, to telecommunications. That website took 400,000 hits in May so it is a heavily used website for people moving across the Border and for the practical reasons that people move across borders.

We undertake a large volume of research. Approximately 70 research projects have been carried out with many in the area of education but with a subject range from telecommunications to health to local history, animal disease, sustainable development, local environmental studies, racism and sectarianism, ethnic minorities, trade unions. We carry out research as requested and because life is hard, we carry out research for a fee. We have researched across a wide range of areas of practical use and where it is mutually beneficial to the people in the two jurisdictions to research a particular area. This is the ethos of the centre and our motive for carrying out research. We only carry out research if the commissioning body believes the research will be useful and of mutual benefit to the people of the two jurisdictions.

We are currently carrying out five major research projects which are funded by the EU INTERREG IV programme, the pan-European cross-border programme of the European Union. The first project is on the Border region economy and is being led by the distinguished Irish economist, Mr. John Bradley. This is studying the Border region and its peripherality, its retail markets, its micro-enterprises and its tourism, with a view to suggesting ways in which it might become regenerated at a time when there is peace and devolved government but also a recession. Our second project is being carried out with our sister organisation, the international centre for local and regional development, which is a cross-Border spatial planning organisation formed by the coming together of spatial planners from Harvard, NUI Maynooth and University of Ulster. We provide the secretariat in Armagh. Using INTERREG funding we are working on action research projects and training programmes with local councillors and officials in the Border region. The third project is a research project on cross-Border hospital services. This has been identified by several reports as a possible area where there could be greater collaboration in the Border region. It already happens at a minor level but it could be possible for hospitals to service on a cross-Border basis and in significant numbers. Next year the centre plans to commence a rather innovative and daunting piece of work, the construction of a pilot impact assessment tool kit to measure the impact of North-South co-operation in Ireland. This is modelled on the work being carried out in health and in environmental impact studies but a study of cross-border co-operation has never been carried out anywhere in Europe. We will study the value for money and the impact of cross-Border co-operation. We hope to start building that model next year. The fifth project is the second phase of the Border People citizens’ mobility and information website. I refer to education action projects. The centre works on educational projects because it is a research centre sponsoring Dublin City University, Queen’s University Belfast and the Workers’ Educational Association. I have not talked about the history of our formation but that information is available on the documentation supplied to the committee. We have five education action projects and exchange projects which have been in operation over the past seven years. I draw the attention of members to the fourth project which is the North-South student teacher exchange which is a highly-praised exchange which has brought 150 trainee teachers to do their assessed teaching practice — a key part of their assessed teaching practice — not in their own town or in the vicinity of their own college but in the other jurisdiction. Young people from Limerick and Dublin do three or four weeks of assessed teaching practice, which means, it counts in their examinations. It is important for them that they do it correctly. It is a key part of their examined three-year training to be a teacher. They do not do it in Dublin or Limerick. They do it in Belfast and, vice versa, trainee teachers in Belfast do their teaching practice in Dublin and Limerick.

We also manage North-South networks. There are three in particular: first, Universities Ireland; second, the Standing Conference on Teacher Education North and South, which brings the colleges of education and other teacher education providers on the island together; and third, which I have mentioned, the International Centre for Local and Regional Development.

Universities Ireland brings the nine universities on the island together. I suppose its biggest and most exciting project is to bring the nine universities together with four African universities in the Irish-African Partnership for Research Capacity Building, using the expertise of the nine Irish universities working together. This is the first time, certainly since partition, that all nine universities have ever come into a major project together, and they are doing it off the island. It is a project very much geared to the common good. They are working with these four African universities to help build their research capacity in the vital areas of health and education. We were in Mozambique in May last. We are going to Malawi in March to hold a training workshop with academics and researchers in health and education from those four African countries.

We also run a North-South post-graduate scholarships programme with the Joint Business Council of IBEC and CBI, and we are the Irish representative of scholars at risk. We bring persecuted academics and scholars for sabbaticals in Irish universities. Those are a few of the things Universities Ireland does.

Probably the most dynamic network in which we have worked in the ten years that we have been in existence is the Standing Conference on Teacher Education, North and South, SCoTENS. I would have been surprised if somebody had told me ten years ago this would be the area where I would find the most energy, enthusiasm and commitment to doing North-South work. That is the way it has turned out, partly because of the commitment of a distinguished and eminent Irish educationalist called Professor John Coolahan, whom many of the members will know, for whom the setting up of this network became a personal commitment.

This network in the past six years has commissioned, and completed mostly, 51 research projects in various areas of education listed. We work a great deal with the North-South Ministerial Council's joint secretariat because we are in the same building as they are in Armagh, an example of which I gave already is the Border People website. Addressing the annual conference of SCoTENS a few years ago, Mr. Tim O'Connor, the first Southern joint secretary of the North-South Ministerial Council stated that it was a superb example of what professional associations can do if they work together across the Border.

SCoTENS brings together colleges of education, university education departments, teaching councils, curriculum councils and education centres. Everybody on the island involved in training teachers now comes together in SCoTENS to work on research, exchange and conference projects. It has unleashed considerable energy which was not there previously in that sector.

I already mentioned the International Centre for Local and Regional Development, ICLRD. It brings spatial planners together from universities North, South and in America. There is a list of research projects in the presentation document. The ICLRD shares our offices in Armagh. The first of these, for example, "Spatial Strategies on the Island of Ireland: Developing a Framework for Collaborative Action", is a piece of work that was strongly encouraged by the Department of Regional Development in Belfast and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in Dublin. It is to provide a non-statutory framework so that we can plan together across the Border. It is stymied at present on the Northern Ireland Executive's Cabinet table, the subject of horse trading between the parties there. However, it is there, the work is done and it has been highly praised by the senior officials in those two Departments in Belfast and Dublin.

Another example of the ICLRD's work are its prestigious conferences which are "must attend" events for planners, not only in Ireland. At the last one in Letterkenny in January, the chief planning officers of England, Scotland and Wales were among the speakers. It has a high international reputation.

With the North-South Public Sector Training Programme, we trained 140 civil and public servants in both jurisdictions in cross-Border co-operation in five courses funded by the EU. The list of lecturers contained in the presentation includes Sir George Quigley and former GAA president Mr. Peter Quinn.

I also listed the conferences and study days. We have done close to 60 study days. The presentation shows the range of areas we have covered in study days, seminars and conferences such as waste management, health, education, local government, school exchanges, ICT, telecommunications, aging. It is a broad range of subjects which people, North and South, have come together to look at in a cross-Border fashion.

The Journal of Cross-Border Studies in Ireland, which we publish every year — of which there is a copy for everybody in the audience — is a research journal on cross-Border studies. The current edition contains an interview with the Northern Ireland First Minister Mr. Peter Robinson talking about North-South co-operation. The 2010 edition will contain an interview with the Taoiseach. I brought sample copies of research reports for the members. They include: a report on all-island mental health, an ICLRD report on rural structuring in counties Derry, Monaghan and the Kerry/Cork border, a compilation of award-winning essays out of the North-South Public Sector Training Programme, and the current report of SCoTENS.

I mention "A note from the next-door neighbours", a monthly blog I send out which some of the members may have seen. Deputy Crawford and Senator Norris are on our mailing list, as are several other Deputies. The Minister of State, Deputy Roche, gets it. If a member is interested in getting it, I can ensure it is e-mailed to him or her. It takes approximately 90 seconds to read. It is a short, thought-provoking essay on an aspect of North-South co-operation. The titles of five recent blogs are: "The Man with the cross-border knowledge in his head"; "Time to bring in the French to run the Enterprise?", which was caused by my utter frustration in the aftermath of the Malahide bridge collapse; "Less Irish unity, more Irish cooperation, please", which may be a little controversial in this forum; "Knitting the Island's relationships back together again"; and "An Unsung Hero of Co-operation from East Belfast". One can access it on our website —www.crossborder.ie.

I listed the staff and the Chair who is a prominent Northern business, Dr. Chris Gibson. I have a hard-working and active staff, three of whom live in the South and four of whom live in the North. I live in Dublin and commute to Armagh. We live cross-Border co-operation. It is not only a question of going to work; we live it.

The presentation document also includes a list of our main sources of finance. I pay tribute and am deeply grateful to the EU programmes without which we would not exist and to the Department of Education and Science which has been very generous to us.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Pollak for an illuminating dissertation and address. We always have been impressed with his work but we are more impressed today than ever with the deep-rooted research and the significant collaboration with the Centre for Cross Border Studies across a large range of areas. The centre is of vital importance to the island and its future.

It is now open to anybody to comment or question.

Senator Cecilia Keaveney

We are well familiar with the work of the cross-Border studies centre. Not that long ago Ms Patricia McAllister gave us a rundown on the research on health. For some it was very informative and others of us would have said we are living and working with those sorts of themes daily.

We had InterTradeIreland here a couple of weeks ago. It spoke of its research. How many people does the centre have in the office to do this work? What links are there between the work of the centre and of InterTradeIreland? Is there much of an overlap? Is there much complementarity or are they distinct bodies where never the twain shall meet. The concept of the research and networking can be a good multiplier if people are not too proud of their hats. The Department of Education and Science is part funding the centre's work but how strong an influence is the research having in changing policy? The health documents were good but is there political acceptance on both sides of the Border to deal with the reality or does the centre need to take away this group of people to work on them in the same way as student teachers?

I am interested in the co-operation on student teaching between both jurisdictions because I compiled a report for the Council of Europe on how history was taught in areas of recent conflict. One of the issues concerns those who write the history. Does the centre have a role in ensuring historians write the history of the recent past, given that the current book culture is who can get his or her autobiography out first? Ultimately, this may be a viable project, given that the centre is involved in the education sector.

I laughed when Mr. Pollak said it was time to bring in the French to run the Enterprise train service. I cursed the service a few months ago when the Minister for Foreign Affairs appeared before the committee and said the operator was exploiting the exchange rate. It had set the exchange rate at 69 cent and the Minister promised to raise the issue at a North-South Ministerial Council meeting. A week later the incident at Malahide took place which had bigger implications for the operator than the exchange rate.

I appreciate the work the centre is doing and it is important to see how it ties in with other activities. We know about the centre but it is important to hear what it is at.

Deputy Seymour Crawford

I welcome Mr. Pollak. He has put a tremendous effort into cross-Border activities and programmes generally. Cross-Border co-operation was a difficult issue to begin addressing a number of years ago but when the centre was established, the worst was over. People could meet to work and make an effort together. I am interested in many of the projects and studies it is undertaking and the important work it has done. The Border region economy is vital to us in counties Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal and so on. While the region can avail of EU, IFI and other funding, the percentage we receive in Cavan-Monaghan is low because we have a smaller population than other parts of Northern Ireland.

The VAT rate is causing a major haemorrhage of trade from the South to the North but we must promote tourism and other sectors. Will Mr. Pollak comment on this? Northern Ireland lost many bed nights during the Troubles and there was not much tourism activity, whereas there are many under-utilised, good hotels in the Border region. We also have many tourism-related projects about which few tourists know anything because they are encouraged to move between Dublin and Galway or County Donegal an odd time but not to travel to the Border region. Lough Muckno in Castleblayney, Castle Leslie and other tourist attractions should be better promoted. This must be done on a cross-Border basis.

The committee has discussed hospital services, which issue must be kept in mind all the time. Recently, there were difficulties in a unit in the hospital in Drogheda, the only major hospital serving counties Cavan and Monaghan. There is potential for cross-Border involvement in medicine generally.

I pay tribute to Mr. Pollak's efforts regarding students and teachers. Many students have enjoyed their involvement with the centre and the teacher issue is important because if they become involved with young people, it will increase understanding of the problems experienced. That is where the education programme comes in, North and South. It is brilliant where the centre tries to use its information to help poorer countries. At a time when governments are cutting back on their commitments to the Third World, it is essential that the centre maintain its links with Malawi and so on.

I would like to hear Mr. Pollak's comments on the tourism and health issues I raised. In spite of the Troubles, the food industry and co-operatives have worked well along the Border. Only 20% of the product processed by the Town of Monaghan Co-op, of which I was a board member for 20 years, comes from County Monaghan, while 80% comes from Northern Ireland. The Kerry Group, the Goodman Group and others are also deeply involved. Private industry has been able to find a basis for cross-Border involvement, yet this is lacking in other sectors.

Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin

It is a pleasure to join colleagues in extending a warm welcome to Mr. Pollak. I congratulate him and the other directors and staff at the Centre for Cross-Border Studies on completing their first decade of work. It is an impressive body of work and I have attended a number of events organised by the centre during the years. It is appropriate that the committee record that decade of work by the centre.

This is not the first occasion on which the centre has been represented before the committee. The author of the study of cross-Border health co-operation with a specific focus on acute hospital care appeared before us. I am encouraged that Mr. Pollak has referred to that as ongoing work. He said it is part of the body of research work the centre is undertaking. As Deputy Crawford said earlier, it is of huge interest to those of us in Border counties south of the Border. I have no doubt this extends significantly further and has an all-island dimension because there are services that are not currently located on the island of Ireland due to the assessment of the possible, potential throughputs in two separate entities. I refer to specialist areas we could secure for particular areas of need, rather than having Irish patients from North or South of the Border having to access specialist care elsewhere.

There is no end to the valuable results that could come from the research currently undertaken. It is not only about a reconfiguration of the current back-to-back system of health care delivery we know along the Border areas. Mr. Pollak, quite rightly, has not over emphasised the extent of the co-operation currently in place, which is small and, in the scale of the whole health systems North and South, minuscule. We have co-operation in terms of out-of-hours patient access and a limited number of exercises has been undertaken under co-operation and working together, CAWT, over the past decade. Much more can be done for the benefit of all who live on this island. I look forward to seeing representatives from the centre back at this committee in the future to bring us up to date on their work and research.

I wish to make one other point. It is as somebody who has a fine-tuned respect and regard for the work of the centre that I make this comment and I hope it will be taken in that context. Mr. Pollak should not be surprised by how many of us read "Notes from the Next Door Neighbours" and I know he will take my comment on his recently published piece "Less Irish Unity, More Irish Co-operation, Please" in the spirit in which it is intended. As somebody who has great respect for the work in which he and his colleagues are currently involved, I must say it was an unhelpful piece. I can understand the sub-texts involved, of which there were several, but cannot understand how he could make such bold and bald statements such as asking how anybody in his or her right mind could advocate moving to a united Ireland as a way forward for the island. This calls for some response. He went further and said Irish unity was "simply off the agenda". Another comment in the article suggested that raising the case for Irish unity was raising "the level of threat once more by continuing to demand the impossible".

As somebody who is in my right mind, which I hope Mr. Pollak will recognise, I deeply and passionately believe in the benefits that will accrue to the people of the island of Ireland from the achievement of Irish unity by consent. This is not an opinion confined to Sinn Féin but is shared with people of different political opinions North and South. However, to present the view that people of this opinion are, somehow, either dinosaurs from the past or people who present a threat to cohesion and co-operation both now and into the future, is off the mark. While I can cope with what was, possibly, the motivation behind his commentary, I know it has created significant offence.

I offer this comment in a spirit I hope Mr. Pollak will accept. It is important that all of us share the same regard that I have already articulated for his work and that of the centre. My regard remains solid on that. However, I have had to address the issue that others have been deeply offended by what was said in the article. I do not intend to go on further about the matter, but I hope Mr. Pollak notes what I have said and will consider and be mindful of it. That is very important.

I wish Mr. Pollak and Ruth Taillon, deputy director, and all of the team associated with the Centre for Cross Border Studies every success over the next decade and, hopefully, many more. Perhaps the next decade is enough, because we will not need cross-Border studies after that. That is how positive I can be.

Mr. Pat Doherty, MLA, MP

I welcome and thank Mr. Pollak for being here today. It is good that the work of the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh is given recognition, particularly in its tenth year of coming here and sharing in dialogue. Dialogue is the key for us in moving forward in understanding each other.

It will be no surprise to the committee that I too picked up on the article mentioned by Deputy Ó Caoláin. At the beginning of the article, Mr. Pollak mentioned the train link between Belfast and Dublin and suggested it did not have any real significance for the people of the South. It is no surprise that people in Donegal, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Cavan or Monaghan would not consider it significant, because they do not have a train service. The lack of significance is more a reflection of RTE than the people and relates to how RTE covers events. I agree the last sentence of his article, where Mr. Pollak suggested raising the issue of reunification was a threat, was particularly bad form. That sounds to me like a denial of the Good Friday Agreement which has a facility within it to bring about the reunification of Ireland, as long as it is done peacefully and democratically and by way of referendum. None of that was changed at St. Andrew's. There is no consciousness in Mr. Pollak's article that perhaps the continuation of partition is a danger into the future. I thought his opinion closed options and set boundaries to the march of a nation. It almost shuts off the need for dialogue and debate around how unity can come about.

While I may sound harsh, I do not want this to reflect on the ten years of good work in the whole area of co-operation which everybody recognises. Mr. Pollak acknowledged this in his article when he said there had never been more co-operation. That is good, but from my perspective what is the end product of lowering the barriers? I ask Mr. Pollak to respect that perspective, which is that eventually we will come to a dialogue that will bring about reunification. Others may have a different perspective and that is fair enough.

Mr. Mark Durkan, MLA, MP

Like others I welcome Mr. Pollak and thank him and the centre for their work over the past ten years. The centre was established in 1999, as was the North-South Ministerial Council, but the centre has benefited from not being interrupted by suspension or weird periods of care and maintenance.

I wish to raise a few points. Mr. Pollak in his presentation reported on the range of work and projects in which the centre has been involved. He reported on the quality of engagement seen in a number of projects and the enthusiasm both during and after those projects. I ask him to tell us about any areas where he met scepticism, indifference or resistance with regard to some of these issues. It is important when dealing with issues of cross-Border co-operation that we avoid just doing what is cosy because it suits what different agencies want to do. It is the case that people do what they like to do rather than what they may need to do. It is a question of how to avoid being too cosy on the one hand and how to avoid being too complicated on the other hand.

Have the centre and Mr. Pollak been involved in any areas of work where he has been disappointed with the lack of a better uptake of positive examples, useful pilot programmes, strong positive pointers arising from research which have not been fully capitalised upon or followed through? Given that the centre is located in the same building as the North-South Ministerial Council, I am conscious that currently the North-South Ministerial Council is operating on not much more than a care and maintenance basis. The work of the Implementation Bodies has not significantly expanded or picked up pace since the end of suspension two and a half years ago. The pre-existing work programmes seem to be informing the areas of co-operation and the work of the Implementation Bodies. It is very much a case of North-South staying low and going slow, so far as I can see. I am conscious that the review exercise stemming from the St. Andrews Agreement seems to be taking a lot longer than people talked about then. This is due to report soon but I certainly do not sense any significant new offerings or openings coming from that review.

Given that this committee deals with the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, this should be a matter of fundamental concern, disappointment and frustration to us. I do not mean to say the North-South council should be just developed and grown for its own sake but much of the sensitivities and inhibitions should have been overcome by now because people have practical and positive experiences of how these arrangements work. They do not race off on agendas of their own and do things that are inimical to the interests or identity of anybody on either side of the Border. Given that we now have all parties engaged in the institutions in the North, I do not think it is too much to ask that we should have all-party, proactive commitment to development of all aspects of the Agreement. People are not holding up or holding back at the level of the British-Irish Council and in those circumstances I have a concern that people are being allowed to hold up and hold back with regard to North-South.

At a time when we have seen the impact of the recession and the international downturn, we know that both jurisdictions will be facing serious pressures in terms of public expenditure, the provision and managing of public services and also investment in infrastructure. In those circumstances North-South makes even more sense in terms of achieving economies of scale and planning best investment for best service models for the delivery of better outcomes, to achieve results for people running public services, those using public services and those working in the public services, as well as the private sector. It seems this is a discussion that is not taking place at present. We should use the presence of the centre at this meeting to back light, so to speak, some of those issues about things that are not happening. None of this is to set aside the very important and positive examples of good things happening to which Mr. Pollak has referred. If we are serious about looking at the challenges and issues for the next ten years we need to take it forward. The work of Mr. Pollak in the Centre for Cross-Border Studies has been taken forward very well using sensitivity and great innovation. The areas for which those of us in the political system are responsible, need to be consolidated and taken forward with a little more dynamism and determination as well.

Mr. Pollak referred to the Border People website. I can recall when the North-South Ministerial Council commissioned the study on obstacles to cross-Border mobility and we considered unwieldy titles for websites. I am pleased it has now developed in a much more user-friendly way. However, there is still a problem in that much of the work done on cross-Border mobility is about providing information on differences and difficulties but there is not a proactive effort to remove or resolve some of those difficulties or anomalies as they affect people in their work and social and family lives. In my view we should be trying to get more feedback rather than just reporting the number of hits on the websites. We should concentrate on the number of questions that still remain for people after they have contacted the website such as why there is still a difficulty, why they may have to work out these differences or why it is left to the individual to take a calculated risk about a bureaucratic or administrative unknown. We might achieve more insight from that website and be able to take work forward that would matter to people on both sides of the Border.

I am also conscious that some of the issues that really affect people in the cross-Border areas are not caused by the Administrations on this island. I am thinking in particular of serious problems for people with regard to tax credits, people living in the South and working in the North who are getting wages and qualifying for tax credits in the UK system but also people living in the North and working in the South who are entitled to tax credits. I refer to the serious problems which people encounter in this regard. Just because it is not a direct responsibility of either Administration on the island it is not good enough for us to regard it as not being a problem we must deal with. It is a problem we must tackle and there is a danger it could get worse if there is a change of government in Westminster as the Tories are talking about changing the tax credit system. The changes they are flagging could make it even more remote and removed from being sensitive to the sort of issues that affect people. Every cross-Border tax case in Ireland is dealt with as a complex case by officers in England with no understanding of the realities. They are not just dealt with as complex cases; many of them are dealt with as suspicious cases, just because people in the natural course of their lives have moved from one side of the Border to the other. Not only do people face all forms of complications but also they are faced with the threat of legal cautions and all sorts of other actions. I know people who have been very distressed by this situation. Senator Keaveney and I have casework in common on this issue. Something needs to be done at a more structured level. I have been taking it up through the UK Treasury, etc. In the context of the work that is meant to be sponsored by the North-South Ministerial Council on cross-Border mobility and the issues in that regard, much more advocacy is needed at that level.

Mr. Pollak mentioned the work in which the centre has been involved regarding Newry-Dundalk. During the interrupted period when we had direct rule after suspension, the north-west gateway initiative was established by the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, and the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr. Peter Hain, MP. It was meant to be cross-Border and crosscutting involving all the key Departments that would be dealing with and affecting the north west as a region. It was a very good initiative that had very positive prospects at the start and considerable positive engagement. Bizarrely, it seems to have withered away since. It has never been adopted by the North-South Ministerial Council and one would have thought when that council was restored along with devolution it would have been a direct, practical and positive initiative that could have been adopted because in its earlier form it had all-party support and engagement. However, it has not been.

We had all the controversies regarding project Kelvin, which was a key project sponsored by the north west gateway initiative — that was what the EU was advised when it received the funding bids and the state aid applications. However, the north-west gateway initiative as a concept, entity or exercise within government had no involvement regarding any of the difficulties, controversies or confused decisions regarding project Kelvin. Essentially the officials told us that the initiative is just a badge that is put on some announcements that somebody somewhere decides he or she likes. That seems like a pretty poor assessment coming from Government officials in the North of something that was meant to be a significant cross-Border measure and now does not seem to be going anywhere. If it is simply an occasional badge, it does not seem to have the standing and commitment it should have.

Deputy Johnny Brady

I welcome Mr. Pollak and thank him for his interesting presentation. I compliment him and his colleagues on the marvellous work they have done in the past ten years. Co-operation is very important. As Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, we have had very good co-operation and met the committee in the North. We travelled to Belfast and members of the Northern committee came here. Recently there was a meeting with Mr. Ian Paisley Jr. MLA and his committee. I believe Mr. Pat Doherty, MP, MLA, was there that day.

Mr. Pollak mentioned that he had done research into foot and mouth disease. Did he research any other areas of animal health? For some time Deputy Crawford, Senator Keaveney and others have been calling for an all-Ireland animal health approach. Deputy Crawford has raised the matter on numerous occasions at British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly meetings. When we met Mr. Ian Paisley Jr. MLA and his committee, I was surprised that the co-operation that existed North and South during the outbreak of foot and mouth disease did not seem to exist during the pork dioxin scare that affected both sides of the Border. More co-operation should exist in this area and particularly on animal health. Deputy Crawford and his colleagues in the Cavan-Monaghan area had concerns over a serious outbreak of brucellosis in Armagh and Fermanagh. There should possibly be more co-operation in this area. When that disease spreads it is like dynamite. I, as a former dairy farmer, and Deputy Crawford, as a dairy farmer, know the destruction it does when it hits. It does not just affect one herd but wipes out an entire area. Perhaps Mr. Pollak might investigate these matters as part of his research in the future.

We have met the Northern Minister, Ms Gildernew, MP, MLA, on numerous occasions here in Dublin and in Belfast. At the level of meetings involving the Minister, Deputy Smith, and his predecessor, the Tánaiste, Deputy Coughlan, there has been considerable co-operation. We would like to see more co-operation, particularly in the animal health area. I again thank Mr. Pollak for his journal and I hope we will get to look at it over the Christmas period.

Chairman

Mr. Pollak will have heard a wide range of deeply held views and I shall leave it to him to respond.

Mr. Andy Pollak

I shall take the questions in order even though they may get a little mixed up as I go along as they involve overlapping points. I will deal with Senator Keaveney's points first. We work very closely with InterTradeIreland. We are in partnership with InterTradeIreland on the Border region research project that I mentioned. Up to now we have not gone very much into the economic area for the very reason that InterTradeIreland is the main body on the trade and business development area and therefore has a research section. We have not ventured into that area. Given that we were talking to two internationally eminent economists, John Bradley and Professor Michael Best of the University of Massachusetts, about the possibility of doing a piece of work in the Irish Border region, InterTradeIreland indicated it would like to work with us on that, which is very complementary.

InterTradeIreland is also very supportive of Universities Ireland. We have run a number of economic conferences, business university collaboration conferences, in which InterTradeIreland was involved. I sat on the North-South round-table group, which was the group that brought senior industrialists and senior businesspeople together with Civil Service heads of Departments, under the auspices of InterTradeIreland, which provided the secretariat. We are just 18 miles apart. We do much work with it. We have very close and good relations, but try not to overlap.

As several contributors said, the big challenge is to turn research into policy. That is not just a challenge in a cross-Border North-South context, it is very difficult to turn research into policy within jurisdictions. However, when the element of a contested border, the tensions of two jurisdictions and the tensions of coming out of 30 years of conflict are added it is a very difficult area. I have given the example of the ICLRD's very good document on a non-statutory collaborative planning framework. It is therefore non-controversial as no laws need to be changed. All the officials say it is an excellent piece of work. However, I understand it is stuck on the Cabinet table in Belfast — perhaps Mr. Durkan, MP, MLA, might be able to help us on that.

I was very interested to hear Mr. Durkan, MP, MLA, talk about the north west gateway. I have spoken to senior officials in the special planning area, North and South, who were very enthusiastic about this. They seem to suggest it is stuck somewhere in the works. Horse trading is going on and people are being blocked. It seems to be a wonderful non-controversial framework proposal. When I interviewed the First Minister, Mr. Peter Robinson, MP, MLA, he seemed to have no problem with it. It makes sense. The north west should be treated as a region for various purposes, including industrial promotion, higher education and transport planning as far as one can while respecting that at the moment there are two separate jurisdictions. Those in that region should be working together and there should be a structure to allow that to happen. For example, I understand that Ilex, which is chaired by a very influential Donegal man, Sir Roy McNulty, is also in that mix. There are no Derry people present. Sorry, I apologise to Mr. Durkan. There are many competing interests in Derry. Sometimes it is difficult to get things done. That is a good example of how the research is done, the policy is agreed by the senior officials and there is an obvious way forward. As Mr. Durkan said, it does not seem to go anywhere. It is just common sense. To Senator Keaveney, it is common sense that County Donegal should work with Derry, but it does not happen.

There are straws in the wind. I am aware of discussions between Letterkenny IT and the University of Ulster. A study was commissioned which pointed out some very positive ways forward, such as there should be a north-west university or higher education alliance. I note that it is even mentioned in the new programme for Government between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. I would like to see it go further. I would like to see one university in the north west. It could lead to a remarkable upsurge in energy if there was a cross-Border university in the north west. There are precedents for it. There is a marvellous cross-border higher education-university network between southern Sweden and Denmark called Oersted which has led to all types of breakthroughs in business university collaboration and incubation centres. I think those models could be followed. It would raise the level of higher education in the north west that individual colleges on either side of the Border, being geographical peripheral and a little far away from the two centres of population and two centres of government, could not do on their own.

I would love to see movement towards a north western university and have pushed it informally with the heads of the university. I would like to see it being a north western technological university similar to Brunel University in London. The north west could become a hub of excellence and technological higher education which could raise everybody's game in the region.

There are battles to be won, but it is always a challenge and there is a limit to what we as a research centre can do. In response to the question posed by Senator Keaveney, if I look back over the ten years of research work we have done, I can only think of one study on policy on either side of the Border. Of the scores of research work we conducted under the umbrella of SCoTENS, we commissioned a study looking at a toolkit for a multicultural classroom. We have thousands of children from multicultural backgrounds, speaking different languages, and of different nationalities coming to live in Ireland, North and South. Both Administrations in Belfast and Dublin needed to tackle this issue. Following research we produced a toolkit, a good piece of work that is now being distributed to every classroom in the country. That is the only example I can think of where research entered into policy.

Deputy Crawford has just left, but in response to his query, the study on the Border region economy will be very practical and will be looking at strengthening Border region markets. In preliminary conversations with economists who are going to run it, they talk about fractured markets in the Border region. The Border region has problems because of its peripheral situation and its ruralism, and it does not have many major multinationals. There are a few in the Derry and Dundalk areas. The economists suggest that we look at micro-enterprises. Most employment in the Border region is in micro-enterprises, small enterprises, they come below the threshold of SMEs, which is the subject of most research and development. These are small companies involved in tourism, catering and retail with between ten and 12 employees. They will always be there. The large multinationals may not be coming in great numbers to the Border region in the foreseeable future. What can we make of those enterprises? There are examples of what can be done elsewhere in Ireland and in Europe. Look at the rural cheesemakers of west Cork who started as small businesses and have international reputations.

Similarly some towns in the south could teach some towns in the Border region how to sell themselves. Towns such as Westport, Bantry, Dingle and Kinsale have become tourism hubs. These are places to which people want to go. We do not have any of those in the Border region. Maybe there is something to be learned. These are the practical things we would like to see. The Border region economic research study will be very practical and will look at the role of tourism, micro-enterprises and retail markets. The flood of Southern shoppers into the North is a temporary phenomenon. It is not really helping the Border region. The Border region will be helped when the Border region produces goods that appear in Border region shops and are then exported. The Border region has the advantage of having an export market on its doorstep. One can export very easily. People in Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland tell me there are many small firms that do not go across the Border, 20 miles down the road. There is work to be done there.

I thank Deputy Ó Caoláin for his kind words, especially since he disagreed with me in his later comments. Hospitals and health are key areas. A number of studies, such as the 2006 comprehensive study on the all-Ireland economy, identified health as an area where major complementarities could be worked out. This has not happened. Obviously the health sector is a vested interest and a slow moving sector. A very eminent person in this jurisdiction, whom we know quite well, called the Department of Health and Children, when he passed through it, Siberia or was it Angola?

Members

Angola.

Mr. Andy Pollak

We believe very strongly that this should be a priority area for Government. This is an area that uses a significant amount of money, with a fair amount of waste and major bureaucracy. In our limited way in our study we are trying to look at what complementarities there are in the Border region, so that fewer hospitals would provide a better service to the residents of the cross-Border region. In preliminary talks on scoping this study, the suggestion that the south-western regional hospital in Northern Ireland was put in Enniskillen rather than Omagh was partly because they were thinking of the possibility of Enniskillen being a hub hospital for a cross-Border region. We need to think that concept through. We are doing some hospital modelling, looking at all the variables, such as where one would locate hospitals and hospital services if the Border was taken away. As a small research centre, it is not controversial for us to model a system where we take the Border away and then question where it would make sense to locate hospitals. That is what we are trying to do in our current study.

I absolutely respect the view of Deputy Ó Caoláin and Mr. Pat Doherty on the imperative for Irish unity. I suppose this note from the next door neighbour was provoked by comments by the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Deputy Martin Mansergh, when he said that the Republic of Ireland has so much on its plate to get out of the economic crisis that this is not the time to talk about Irish unity. I am not a Unionist, but I have unionism in my family and I know they still feel that North-South co-operation represents a threat to them. I am always at pains to say that what we do is aimed at finding what is mutually beneficial to the people of the two jurisdictions. I believe that in the long term, that is the way forward. If one gets people working together, they will understand the other side, that people in the other jurisdiction do not have horns on their heads and do not threaten them. They are just like them, with similar aspirations, they want a good education for their children, a good health service and the same things that they want. That was my motivation in writing that column. As a journalist I cannot help being provocative sometimes. I did not mean to offend anybody but was trying to provoke debate.

I have covered the matters raised by Mr. Pat Doherty. Mr. Mark Durkan spoke of scepticism, indifference and resistance but there has been surprisingly little resistance. Given the fact that the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service launched the journal of the Centre for Cross Border Studies, which enthusiastically endorses North-South co-operation, and said some glowing words about us, which are quoted on our website, things must be changing.

I am pleasantly surprised at the reaction at senior level, from which we get a lot of co-operation. Of course, Northern departments with DUP Ministers are not very enthusiastic about this kind of work and I agree that the work has slowed down significantly since the DUP came into office. In the South the problems seem to exist more at the operational level. Civil servants do not really want to do this type of work as they see it as peripheral to their real concerns. The economic crisis has caused people to turn inwards and they are focused on the deep financial problems of this jurisdiction, which is another excuse to push North-South co-operation aside.

The former Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, used to bang the table and tell his Ministers that this work was important and that their civil servants had to do it. I have huge respect for the current Taoiseach and I know he is passionately committed to North-South co-operation but there is indifference and inertia at Civil Service level, especially in the middle ranks. I came up with a very good idea for telemedicine, which was developed by people in Belfast City Hospital who suggested it would have a real potential for application in remoter areas of the west of Ireland. I wrote to a senior official in the Department of Health and Children seven years ago and I have yet to receive an acknowledgement. I am disappointed there has not been better uptake of some of the ideas but we are in a time of consolidation and survival rather than expansion.

There is real room for expansion in health. Yesterday I was putting together my questions for the Taoiseach for the next edition of the Journal of Cross Border Studies and one of them will be on areas he thinks we can expand, even in the present difficult economic climate. I will suggest the area of energy because we are one island and the gas pipeline already works well. The green agenda — perhaps a green “new deal” — would really make sense on an all-island basis. A lot of work on spatial planning is being done by the International Centre for Local and Regional Development, ICLRD, and the planners want to press on with it. The north west would be an obvious area for people to work together. There is also a real argument for a higher education institute in the north west.

I agree with Deputy Johnny Brady that animal health is an obvious area. During the foot and mouth crisis of 2002 there was a high level of co-operation and various committees of the two agriculture Departments tackled the issue. There was co-operation between Teagasc and its counterpart in Northern Ireland and the IFA-UFU co-operation was remarkable in that they worked with farmers in south Armagh. I am sorry to hear there was not similar co-operation during the dioxin scare and I know blame was apportioned in that regard, which is regrettable. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is a Border county man, from Cavan, and the equivalent in the North is a Fermanagh woman so they should be able to build future co-operation.

Chairman

On behalf of everybody on the committee, I thank Mr. Pollak for a most thought-provoking and informative presentation. He raised many items and responded very generously to all the comments that were made. I thank him for the work he and his colleagues do and we are deeply grateful for the outstanding reservoir of information and research they provide. While not all their work becomes policy on either side of the Border it is used as a tool of information to enable others to achieve consensus.

There was a gestation period before the centre was created in 1999 and a long lead-in period during a difficult time. The centre has done excellent work in the past ten years. Mr. Pollak mentioned health and other areas for co-operation. In particular, there is massive opportunity in the cancer and oncology research area and both telemedicine and teleworking can be brought to bear on that project. We were the only State in the European Union to establish a national teleworking council, in which I was very much involved. We drove the agenda strongly and the European Union gave us many plaudits for our work but it did not have the impact for which we had hoped. Much work has been done, however, and there is a lot of potential in that area.

There are many cross-Border opportunities in archaeology, geology, genealogy, the marine, fishing and heritage tourism and I hope we can work on them going forward. The Good Friday Agreement and the St. Andrews Agreement are very important to this committee and we are very committed to fulfilling their aspirations, goals and policies. We want to achieve this by co-operation, communication and consensus. There is no threat to anybody on this island as co-operation is an opportunity for mutual progress, recognising our unique qualities, our great capacities and our successes and opportunities.

I value Mr. Pollak's comments about the European Union and recognise its achievements. We acknowledge the resources made available by the EU and the leadership involved in providing those resources. We recognise the INTERREG programmes, the peace programmes and the special EU programmes body. We recognise the fact that the Republic of Ireland qualifies for funding as a separate State from Northern Ireland. We acknowledge the work of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of the Isles.

European funding is also available on a tripartite basis and there is huge potential to capitalise on our region using the Centre for Cross Border Studies and other such bodies. The education system and the political system, working with our Departments and agencies, need to ensure that we capitalise on their work and put forward imaginative projects that can have a real impact on the well-being of our people, drawing down the available resources in partnership with each other and with Scotland, Wales, England and the whole of the British Isles. There is a huge opportunity to partner with the European Union and the Centre for Cross Border Studies has made a huge contribution in that regard.

The depth and variety of the work of the centre are truly remarkable. We salute Mr. Pollak, all his staff and those who co-operate with them. We salute the board and the very eminent people who serve on it. While the work of the centre is a stark reminder of the many negative impacts which the Border can have on those living closest to it, it is also heartening to learn of the innovative examples of co-operation across a wide spectrum of areas, including health and education right up to citizen information-sharing. I wish Mr. Pollak, his staff and the centre well as it looks forward to the coming years. Hopefully they will be able to guide us with the information resources and tools we need to achieve both consensus and the progress people need and deserve.

Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin

On a couple of occasions today we have addressed an issue which is a bit like the elephant in the room. I suggest for a future meeting that we undertake to address directly the consequential distortions of the Border, North and South, in relation to commerce as a consequence of two different currencies on the island of Ireland, the differential in regard to taxation, North and South, and that we recognise that this is having a serious negative impact not only on the retail sector but the consequent employment potential that sector offers within the Border counties. I have made the point in the past that this ebbs and flows. At one point in time the traffic goes South-North as is currently the case; on other occasions it is North-South as we have experienced in the not too distant past. It is not that there are winners now north of the Border and that there were winners south of the Border. If there is to be sustainable growth in the sector we need sustainable markets. The local indigenous markets do not support North or South at different times their respective commercial and retail outlets. Therefore, there are no winners here. Everybody is a loser in terms of long-term sustainable growth and employment. As a committee we would do good work in seeking to address what steps could be taken. Whatever about the issue of a single currency across the island of Ireland as a realisable objective in the short-term, certainly there is a basis for looking at tax harmonisation to address this very serious situation.

This Christmas will see the lights go out and the doors close for the very last time on several retail outlets in my home town and in towns like it along the Border from Donegal to Dundalk. I engaged with several people in business in the town of Monaghan recently and two Saturdays ago, in four of the cases concerned in one of the main streets of the town on the previous Saturday not a soul crossed the threshold. That is within seven or eight weeks of Christmas. This is the time of year they would hope to make up for poorer times. It is not happening; it will not happen and we are looking at very serious consequences for them and their business. For the people who have already lost their jobs there will be no prospect of re-employment in a rejuvenated local economy any time soon. There it is, the elephant in the room. I would appreciate if we would undertake to address these issues within a short timeframe.

Senator Cecilia Keaveney

Following on from Deputy Ó Caoláin's remarks, we had a meeting of the Northern Commission, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission and Stormont yesterday. One of the issues discussed was that of the roadshow, being seen to be out and about on issues. I wonder whether we should have a meeting in the regions, whether in Monaghan and Donegal with a cross-Border element. We should hear first-hand from some of the business people. Rather than invite them to come here we should go there and see the queues at Asda and the cars in the car parks and their registrations. It would have a strong impact particularly for people who are not from the Border area to get out and meet people first-hand and then come back and speak with the officials afterwards.

Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin

That proposition is totally in line with what I have suggested and I would support it.

Chairman

I do not have a problem with that but there is not much point in going up to give hope if we do not know what the hope is.

Senator Cecilia Keaveney

We have to go and listen first.

Chairman

I agree with that but we have a fair idea of the seriousness of the situation. We addressed this issue at our last meeting when Mr. Liam Nellis and Mr. Aidan Gough of InterTradeIreland appeared before the committee. In my winding up remarks I tried to inculcate the challenges for both sides of the Border as to how we could go forward. We are committed to our December meeting for which we have set an agenda. I give a commitment to the committee that I will look at this issue and hope to address it——

Mr. Mark Durkan, MLA, MP

In the context of considering how you might move on the issues the Deputy and the Senator have raised, I come back to the presentation in which they had told us about the research project on the Border region economy. Obviously there are some others that have an impact assessment. If the Chairman finds out from the centre whether there might be something to show from some of those people, because they could be relevant in the context of any exercise we are doing on these issues, it may be the case that they may wish to pick up on some of the points made by Deputy Ó Caoláin and Senator Keaveney to ensure they are reflected or counted into the research project.

Mr. Andy Pollak

I support Mr. Durkan. I suggest that Professor Bradley and Professor Best who are very eminent economists, a year or so from now, when they are into their research project they will be coming with new data on the state of the Border region and how it might emerge from its problems. That might be a good time to invite them to speak.

Chairman

Certainly we will do that. Based on what has been said by members I propose to give this issue priority in our work programme for the new year. We have set our agenda for December. I hope to address this issue at either the January or the February meeting. I will give thought to what has been suggested but we need to look at how we can equalise trade performance on both sides of the Border and provide sustainable growth in each region. That is the critical challenge. While it is wonderful to visit people, unless we have some solution there is not much point in going to listen and not deliver. I will give it some thought. It is a big challenge. I appreciate what has been said here. The retail sector is hit at present and this is affecting revenues and the Exchequers on both sides, jobs and credit and it is a major problem for us all. Be assured we will give it priority.

The date of the next meeting is 10 December at 11.30 a.m., the day after the budget when we will address tourism. The chief executive officer of Tourism Ireland will be present.

The joint committee adjourned at 1.10 p.m. until 11.30 a.m. on Thursday, 10 December 2009.