To ask the Minister for the Economy for an update on the InterTradeIreland budget.

Mr C Murphy

InterTradeIreland's budget reflects its operating needs, in line with its annual business plan. For 2024, InterTradeIreland's budget is £15·4 million. The split is on a one third/two thirds basis between my Department and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE). My Department's contribution is £5·2 million, and DETE's contribution is £10·2 million. It is worth noting that InterTradeIreland can access additional funding, including from the Shared Island Fund, where it leads on women's entrepreneurship and clustering in partnership with Invest NI and Enterprise Ireland.

Mr C Murphy

The consequence of the additional funding that we put in has been to raise the headcount in InterTradeIreland from 47 to 65, and it is recruiting for those posts. It obviously covers the anticipated staff costs, and the request for staff is to meet the challenges. InterTradeIreland will be a key component in ensuring, in relation to the last question, that the advantages of dual market access are properly understood and advanced by businesses across the island. It has other important programmes on clustering and women's entrepreneurship that were funded through the Shared Island Fund, but we wanted to make sure it had the complement of staff needed to deliver on the challenges and the work it will have in the time ahead. I expect that, when further business plans are developed, there may well be a request for additional resources to grow the staff, but certainly it was under-resourced for some time. InterTradeIreland is now at a point where it has sufficient staff to face the immediate challenges, and I will now look to future plans and discuss them at the North/South level with my counterpart in the South.

Mr Gaston

Last week, we had the announcement about appointments to Intertrade UK. Can the Minister confirm that no money from his Department is currently going to that body, meaning that it is a de facto window-dressing exercise to spare the blushes of his government partners in the DUP when they sold out on the Union?

Mr C Murphy

I attended the first meeting of the East-West Council, and there is no request for any resource. The body will be located in Whitehall and resourced from there. There is no request for resources from my Department, so no question around that arises. Of course, we want to see trade being as seamless as possible from east to west, North to South, into Europe and into the rest of the world. That is why we are being proactive in marketing dual market access to make sure that people understand it. That will be of benefit to all of our businesses. Of course, Brexit will continue to present challenges — unwanted challenges — to us, but that decision was taken in Britain, and we will continue to try to meet those challenges as best we can.

Mr Boylan

Will the Department for the Economy continue to fund InterTradeIreland at its level of need?

Mr C Murphy

We have moved to fund it at its level of need. It had not been funded to that level for some time, and we have already moved to do that. I anticipate that, as the level of business associated with the area in which it is working grows, there might be a requirement to re-examine that funding over the coming years. I am committed to and know that my counterpart in Dublin is committed to making sure that InterTradeIreland has the resource that it needs to do the vital job that we want it to do.

Mr Speaker

We move now to topical questions.