I thank the joint committee for the invitation and we are greatly honoured to present to it. Mr. Declan McGrath, chairman, asked me to convey his apologies for not being able to attend. He runs a company as his day job and, unfortunately, was called away on urgent business.
While the two parent organisations, IBEC and the CBI, are large in scale, the IBEC-CBI joint business council has a small executive team consisting of Ms Paula O'Dwyer, our recently appointed executive in Belfast, Ms Julie Jordan, and me. With some administrative support, the council is not a large organisation, but I hope we punch above our weight in terms of our impact.
Since the early 1990s the joint business council has been working to build co-operation between businesses and companies on the island of Ireland. It was started when the atmosphere and outlook for business on the island were very different than they are today. In their wisdom, the two main organisations saw the need for greater levels of personal contact, networking, common enterprises and joint ventures between companies North and South. Instead of the individual business organisations lobbying the respective governments, the council would be a single voice on the island to address cross-Border needs and the needs of the all-island economy, independent of the separate agendas of the respective governments. The council is non-political, with its entire focus on the economic and trade agenda.
Having talked about conditions as they applied in 1991, the big thrust for the joint business council at the time was networking. One could almost have described us as a dating service, getting companies together, running road shows and trying to build co-operation and assist companies in exploiting market opportunities on both sides of the Border. That role continued up to the signing of the agreement in 1998 and subsequently the creation of the cross-Border bodies. Particularly following the creation of InterTradeIreland, there was a need for IBEC and the CBI to recast its role and reconsider how it might fit into the new institutional framework. At that stage the members decided that, rather than being a service provider and getting involved in the detail of co-operation, the role should be given to InterTradeIreland and we were happy to do this because the latter was a much bigger organisation and very well resourced. IBEC and the CBI then switched to the role it maintains up to this day, maintaining the network and acting as a lobby organisation in terms of pursuing the cross-Border agenda. The issues we deal with are familiar to the committee. They have to do with economic development, trade, promoting entrepreneurship, infrastructure issues, particularly cross-Border roads, but, increasingly, the focus is on the energy agenda and renewables. I would identify, as would our members, the single electricity market as being probably the most significant development in terms of the management of infrastructure and energy matters on the island. We recently published a joint business council policy paper on all-island electricity and energy matters which sets out our stall as regards the needs of the all-island economy in terms of energy requirements looking forward to 2020. The report is available on our website and we are happy to give a copy to the committee.
I have described our role and networking focus. One aspect I should highlight as regards the current role of the JBC is the significance of east-west linkages. We refer to east-west linkages in the context of the island as a whole and also in the context of the adjoining island. In terms of the east-west agenda on the island, the JBC has long been associated with the Dublin-Belfast economic corridor. We spent a good deal of time lobbying on economic corridor issues. Members, say ten years ago, would have been enormously preoccupied with the need to upgrade the M1 and the N1 to create a motorway between the two capitals. That vision has now almost been delivered upon. We are very nearly there, thanks to the two governments and the activities of the roads authorities in both jurisdictions. While that is good, we always need to keep an eye on the future. The Derry to Dublin route is recognised, particularly by my IBEC colleagues in the north west, as being an extremely important priority in terms of infrastructure provision. To complement the upgrading of the Derry to Dublin route, we also have a focus on the southern part of the north-west region, particularly the Sligo-Enniskillen route, on which we have been lobbying and expressing concern centred on the N16-A4 economic corridor, a region with many problems, as the Chairman knows. The trade focus in that broad region is on Belfast rather than Dublin in terms of freight and the movement of goods. We should like to see that third corridor addressed as a priority by the two governments. There is, perhaps, some disappointment that this project has slipped off the radar.
East-west linkages are quite important on the island. In anticipation of something I was going to say later, perhaps, under the INTERREG programme, we have a strategic link with agencies in Scotland, about which I can talk more. Certainly, in our work programme we have prioritised the development of better economic and trade links between Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland, broadly in three areas, including the promotion of entrepreneurship and infrastructure development, with particular reference to the North Channel Partnership which for a number of years has been lobbying for improvements on the corridor between Larne, Belfast and Stranraer onwards. We see this as particularly significant, as well as the energy and renewables agenda. Interconnection with Scotland and the island of Britain is viewed as a priority and also a very significant part of our programme.
I have prepared a slide to illustrate our work programme. The Chairman has mentioned the fact — we are extremely grateful — that we have a very good working relationship with our two sponsor bodies in Northern Ireland and the Republic, namely, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. We also have a good working relationship with the special EU programmes body, SEUPB, in Belfast. We have been successful in our funding application under INTERREG 4 which runs from 2007-13. Under the INTERREG programme we are committed to delivering in a number of areas. There is a range of projects for the JBC and the relevant slide sets out our principal focus areas which are grouped under three themes. Theme 1 broadly covers people issues, including skills and training, with labour mobility being particularly important. My colleague, Ms O'Dwyer, will focus on these areas. My colleague in Belfast, Ms Julie Jordan, looks after theme 2 which covers all-island infrastructure, including roads, logistics and supply chain issues, as well as the environmental matters, particularly energy. My focus is on theme 3 which covers innovation and entrepreneurship.
There are some cross-cutting themes. I refer, in particular, to business network development, on which we work closely with our colleagues in InterTrade. As the JBC is a relatively small organisation, our ambitions in terms of business network development under INTERREG 4 are modest. We focus on three areas: a food industry network in the north west linking companies on both sides of the Border; an all-island logistics network which sets an agenda for road haulage and shipping companies; and building a network between renewables research centres on the island of Ireland in the universities and industry. Therefore, we have a focus on three business networks under the 2007-13 programme. We are not delivering all of them but are working in close collaboration with agencies such as InterTradeIreland.
We have covered most of the initiatives in the next slide. We have a cross-Border project that links schools using ICT as a technology platform. My colleague, Ms Paula O'Dwyer, is closely involved in developing this project and we will describe it in more detail during the discussion. The key focus of this project, which we expect to launch formally later this year, is on entrepreneurship. We are trying to encourage our young people in schools in the two parts of the island to get involved closely in looking at issues in the business studies curriculum that deal with entrepreneurship and starting businesses. We see this as the most important part of our agenda. If there is consensus on any economic issue in the island, it is on the need for greater levels of enterprise and the need for new business start-ups as a way of addressing issues of economic development and employment creation. We feel that there is a great need for young people in both parts of the island to be supported and motivated in the enterprise agenda.
Industry traditionally engaged with schools through the medium of what I call "the pack". An industry group might put €20,000 or £20,000 into developing a printed pack of materials and send it to 1,200 schools and hope it would be used by the teachers in the classroom. The pack often ended up in the bin because the schools are getting packs every day of the week.
In our discussions with the departments and with schools, we found that students and teachers were increasingly PC illiterate and Internet platform literate. There is a downside to on-line social networks, and we hear stories about Bebo and Facebook and so on. However, there is also an upside because the children understand these technologies and are interested and motivated. When we speak about using ICT, using computers in the classroom is all old hat. We are now talking about ICT enabled interactive platforms that children use. Using these platforms leads to a level of interaction between teachers and pupils. This approach has been proven to work in other areas over the past two to three years. It is entirely relevant that it is used in the area of enterprise and entrepreneurship.
We are trying to get kids to think about something other than accountancy and balance sheets, such as why it is that some companies succeed while other companies in the same market fail. We try to get them to think about the psychological issues rather than just blaming the banks. This raises the issues of leadership and vision. That is what entrepreneurship is all about and experience has indicated that.
We have key partners and they are listed in the next slide. I do not wish to dwell on any particular group except to acknowledge the support we have been given by the special EU programmes body in Belfast and the North-South Ministerial Council, which has been very helpful to the JBC in recent years. We also have good working relationships with the local authority cross-Border groups, such as the East Border Region based in Newry, ICBAN and the North West Region Cross Border Group in Derry.
We have a partnership with the centre for Irish studies in Boston College, and I have just returned from a study group there and from a group in Boise, Idaho, that was put together by Boston College. It was a North-South group that included civil servants and private sector people, and we looked at entrepreneurship education in the US. We had a very good session with MIT and we also looked at financing start-ups and the role of venture capital and angel funds in particular. This was very interesting and gave us a lot of food for thought on how to address similar challenges on this island.
I wish to mention the key challenges that we the JBC feel need to be met. Unquestionably, we need to build more dynamic, competitive regional economies, not only on this island but also in Britain. There is a role for the joint business council, especially in view of our strategic link with Scotland. There is enormous scope for co-operation in the three regions and in learning from each other about what works. We need to overcome institutional complacency on cross-Border structures and the issue of fragmentation. We have a plethora of cross-Border entities and the vision may be lacking sometimes. We are all about defeating the still prevailing partitionist mindset across the Border. This exists in all communities and is not just a North-South issue but an east-west issue as well.
There is a need to unlock entrepreneurial potential, and this is a critical issue. We have internal issues with the business organisations as well which revolve around building a more dynamic, inclusive business voice on the island and creating a business voice that would have a focus on start-ups, entrepreneurship and the needs of small businesses. There is a degree of fragmentation that is something for us to challenge. Committees such as this one can assist.
For too long, the joint business council has been associated with Dublin and Belfast. We may be late converts, but there is a need for a greater focus on the north west and the west. We also need to focus on the counties on both sides of the Border in the years ahead.
As for the joint business council, instead of having executives in both Belfast and Dublin, consideration should be given to having an office in Enniskillen, Armagh or Newry, as that would be more appropriate.
I wish to mention our launch event for the JBC INTERREG IVC 2007-13 programme. Even though the formal INTERREG IVC programme runs from 2007, our application was only approved in recent weeks and to mark the programme the JBC is running an event next Thursday at the Armagh City Hotel to which I invite all members.
I apologise if I was a little long-winded.