North/ South Ministerial Council Aug 2000 Preliminary Study (CCBS) Sept 2000NSMC Plenary Nov 2001 Main Study Nov 2001NSMC Plenary Jan 2002Public Consultation June 2002NSMC Plenary March 2004 Review of Information Provision Border People - Phase I (PEACE) Border People - Phase II (INTERREG)

50 Recommendations Information Improvements Taxation Pensions Social Security benefits Health/ Childcare Housing Transport Education, Training and Employment Telecommunications, Banking and Insurance

Public consultation (January 2002) Most deliverable - Information improvements “the one-stop-shop should be independent of existing providers” “ the information initiative should be a partnership between NICAB and Comhairle” Least deliverable – Personal taxation “..outside the remit of the NI Assembly”

Information Improvements NSMC Plenary categories of recommendations Considered recommendations on the difficultly of accessing relevant information Agreement to establish a website to act as a central point of entry to existing cross-border mobility in both jurisdictions Review of existing information provision South - Centre for Cross Border Studies (March 2004) North – PricewaterhouseCoopers (June 2004)

Border People - Phase I 2 years ( PEACE) Developed and managed by CCBS Hosted by DFPNI Delivery and Innovation Division Integrated marketing campaign – 2 public launches Peak 50,000 page views per month during public launches (Apr’08) 3 User Groups BorderWise FAQs and Case Studies

Themes Commute Work Live Study

Life Events Becoming unemployed Getting married / divorced Having a baby Going back to education Setting up a bank account Starting a new job Retiring Health care / Getting ill Moving

Target Groups Frontier workers Job seekers Retired Self-employed The unemployed Workers Migrant workers Students Parents People with disabilities

Border People - Phase II INTERREG IVA – Partnership NSMC/Centre for Cross Border Studies 6 Steering Group meetings 6 User Group meetings 30 month marketing campaign

Border People – Information Pages 240 information pages – not including FAQs and Case studies Content continually updated –65 pages updated since Feb 09 –Hundreds of new links added or replaced

Topics updated recently include: Migrant worker rights Free travel scheme Carers Allowance Redundancy Starting a business Job seeking Minimum wage Income tax Tax credits Child Benefit Car insurance UK and Irish Budgets –VAT –Stamp Duty –Capital Gains Tax –Job Seeker supports –Vehicle Scrappage Scheme

Plans for the Phase II - Information Update every page Consolidate similar pages / topics Include a Frontier Worker element to each page Frequent dynamic Polls to capture information on users – expectations

Role of the User Group – To advise Nature, scope and effectiveness of website Information needs of the community Matters relating to cross-border mobility policy and management Development on website service standards and performance indicators Opportunities for improvement.

User Group – May 2008 we still do not have any better statistics on the exact numbers of people mobile across the border cited statistics are estimates developed in 2001 during the preparation of the North/South Ministerial Council Obstacles to Mobility Study lack of an accurate, in-depth understanding on cross- border mobility groups within the island is considered by the User Group to be the “major missing element in the overall picture”

Scale of cross-border mobility YearScale ,000 frontier workers - 9,000 in each direction (Obstacles to Cross-border Mobility report) Mid-1990’sAlmost 9,000 workers commuting South ->North Estimated 2,500 workers commuting North-> South (EURES figures) Migration inward inflow of 2, 616 South ->North Average annual outflow of 2, 757 North -> South (Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment NI) cross-border students 1, 008 Northern students in the South 4, 206 Southern students in the North (Higher Education Statistics) , 567 people usually reside in the South who had been born in the North(Central Statistics Office)

Parliamentary Question 25 Feb 2009 How many people resident in Northern Ireland were employed in the Republic of Ireland? Up to 6800 in 05/06 and 7700 in 07/08 (includes ALL countries, not possible to isolate the south)