British-Irish Co-operation
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-24
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

The point is I think it is high. I am not arguing the figure, but the point I would make is there is a need for data on this. There are also less and less coming in through airports because of controls and so on that have been implemented over the last two to three years. There is an issue, but I am not clear. Could the Deputy flesh out his proposals and send me a paper on the Irish Sea border, and how that would operate and could be implemented? That is challenging as well and we need to be honest with people when ideas like that are floated. We do need more monitoring and controls so that we understand what is happening in these flows, as well as to deal with traffickers. I came across some terrible cases when I met Women's Aid in Northern Ireland recently in terms of women who were trafficked and horrifically abused in the course of the trafficking. Trafficking is a significant driver of migration also, and that does not get captured enough in the debate and the narrative.
I appreciate Deputy Devlin's reference to what is a very significant allocation from the shared island fund. It is more than just infrastructure. It is about people and the shared island initiative has put more research into systems North and South, such as health and education, than anything that has been done since the foundation of the State. I also direct that to Deputy Ó Murchú. Under the shared island initiative, there is facilitation for people-to-people supports. The shared home place programme is one potential area, and the Department of foreign affairs, under the shared island initiative, has a community-based funding scheme and programme. We have a dialogue strand which is bringing people together and then we have a research strand. The funding strand deals with research between universities, collaboration on cancer and issues of mutual concern to communities. If the Deputy has particular ideas, please talk to us. The connectivity that is happening now-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-24