Chamber highlight challenges facing local businesses in Newry at Oireachtas

Newry Chamber of Commerce took its case for greater cross-border cooperation directly to Dublin earlier this week, with the Chamber's President and CEO appearing before an Oireachtas committee to highlight the challenges facing businesses in the greater Newry area. The visit also included separate discussions with the Shared Island Unit on the potential role of the Shared Island Fund in the development of the region.

Chamber President Conor Patterson and CEO Michael Savage travelled to Dublin on Tuesday 21 April to address the Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, joining other chambers from the border region to discuss cross-border trade.

Patterson delivered a five-minute opening submission to the committee, calling for stronger and deeper engagement from the Irish Government in its role as co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement on the future development of the North. He pointed to the fiscal challenges facing the NI Executive in delivering key infrastructure projects, particularly given the absence of EU Structural Funds following Brexit. Both chamber representatives then took questions from TDs, Senators and Westminster MPs.

Patterson argued that greater Irish Government engagement in the north's development would help to strengthen the all-island economy and unlock the potential of the greater Newry and greater Dundalk area to become an economic powerhouse on the Dublin-Belfast corridor. He also said it would create headroom for new housebuilding to ease growing housing pressures on the eastern seaboard of Ireland.

Savage outlined the work Newry Chamber has been progressing in partnership with Dundalk Chamber alongside NI Water and Uisce Éireann on a cross-border wastewater project funding mechanism. He said the initiative has the potential to unlock significant development opportunities for our cross-border region while protecting shared waterways flowing from the Newry River Estuary to Carlingford Lough and Dundalk Bay.

He also urged the Irish Government to support a Newry Chamber-led initiative for an all-island work permit that would allow EU workers living in the Republic to work in the North. He said the permit, if developed, could help ease recruitment pressures across sectors including hospitality, manufacturing, agri-food, construction and the care sector.

Speaking after the meeting, Patterson said: "I would like to thank the Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement for hosting us and other Chambers from both sides of the border and for listening to what we all had to say."

He added: "It is important that we continue to engage with all politicians, Ministers and statutory bodies across the island of Ireland and across these islands to encourage stronger and deeper collaboration around funding that yields mutual benefits for the development of a robust and successful All-Island Economy."

Patterson said Newry Chamber would "continue to lobby hard to ensure that our key infrastructure and skills needs for future development are met through innovative cross-border and cross-governmental funding mechanisms and initiatives."

View the meeting at www.oireachtas.ie