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Budget (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

I shall briefly reply to those questions. I fully agree that although we have four systems of education, by far the two largest are the Roman Catholic system and the state system. The other two are small in comparison: integrated to a certain extent and Irish language to an even smaller extent. However, it is the policy of Her Majesty’s Government to promote and increase the number of people involved in integrated education and Irish language schools. The more finance that is poured into those two newer systems, the more costly per capita in Northern Ireland will education be when compared with elsewhere in England and Wales. Scotland is slightly like Northern Ireland because it has a separate Roman Catholic system and a state system. The second point was on the inquiry into Waterways Ireland. I am glad that we seem to be reaching common ground here; the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, is coming down in favour of an inquiry and is saying what type. I accept what he says. If it is a north/south body that we set up under the Belfast agreement, then there should be a north/south inquiry into it. But I want a guarantee that the south does not have a veto on such things, otherwise we will forever be subject to a cover up.