Official Report: Minutes of Evidence
Committee for the Economy, meeting on Wednesday, 21 January 2026
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Mr Phillip Brett (Chairperson)
Ms Diana Armstrong
Mr Jonathan Buckley
Mr Pádraig Delargy
Miss Jemma Dolan
Mr David Honeyford
Ms Sinéad McLaughlin
Ms Kate Nicholl
Witnesses:
Mr Alan Russell, Department for the Economy
Mr Ian Snowden, Department for the Economy
Business Plan Update: Department for the Economy
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): We are joined by Ian Snowden, permanent secretary at the Department. You are welcome again, sir. We also have Alan Russell, head of economic priorities.
Do you want to say anything, Ian?
Mr Ian Snowden (Department for the Economy): No.
Mr Snowden: That is a system that we developed in the Department. You will see from the explanation at the bottom that it is about time slippage.
Mr Snowden: The officials in the Department who are responsible for those policy areas will come back. Alan and his team then collate that information and interrogate it a bit. Sometimes, I will challenge it when it comes to me.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): OK. I will pick a couple of examples. From my perspective, some of them, frankly, look made up. I am maybe an exception, but I read your previous updates and compared them with this one. Number 20 relates to the enhanced economic zone, and it is the same wording that we had last year. The only difference is that the deadline has moved from March 2025 to March 2026, but you have given yourself a "green".
Mr Snowden: There are different gateway stages. That might be what the reference is. The work that we are doing with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in London has to go through the five gateway processes. We had to navigate gateways 1 to 3 last year. We are currently at gateway 4, and a paper has been with the Executive, awaiting their approval, since before Christmas.
"Working towards the delivery of an Enhanced Investment Zone ... to drive economic growth."
That is exactly the same wording as last year. To date, no money has been spent.
Mr Snowden: No, because we have not had the money released yet. The programme has not been approved.
Mr Snowden: That is because we are progressing against those gateway stages in line with what the programme of work would have been at the start. Obviously, the update that you received does not go into an enormous amount of detail about that, but we can provide you with more. I think that the Committee has had briefings on the investment zone.
Mr Snowden: Up to six months of a delay.
"Consulting on and finalising an Aviation and Route Development Policy to maximise air connectivity and drive economic growth."
That was in last year's business plan.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): On five separate occasions, I submitted questions for written answer to the Department. The target was March 2025, and, on five occasions last year, I was told that it would be done by the end of last year; that is 31 December. We have now changed that to 31 March. How is it coded yellow if it has been delayed by at least a year?
Mr Snowden: We are talking about it being yellow in this year's business plan. If we were to refer back to the previous year's business plan, it would be more than a year. In this particular case, the legislative consent motion on the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill had to be looked after by the team, which is a very small team of two people. That work had to be prioritised, so it has been delayed until this year. It has not moved as fast as we had hoped.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): Those are based on this year's business plan not on the original. Therefore, something could be marked as green, but, if you looked at it from when it was first announced, it could be red.
Mr Snowden: If we were to refer back to its position in the 2024-25 business plan, it could be marked as red. Some of the actions have been carried over because they slipped from last year into this year, and we have identified which those were at the point. If you would like, in future updates, I could say whether something is carried over from the previous year's business plan and that the original target date was x, and then you can identify that.
Mr Alan Russell (Department for the Economy): May I add that an error came to my attention yesterday in our end-year report for last year's business plan. It marks that action as green. That is erroneous, and we will fix that.
Mr Snowden: Nothing has fallen off. Those are the 50 actions.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): Maybe I missed it, but where is the Irish language draft policy that was in last year's business plan? What number is it on the update?
Mr Russell: It is not in this year's business plan.
Mr Snowden: Work was done last year, but we did not include it in this year's business plan.
Mr Snowden: It is with the Minister for her consideration.
Mr Snowden: Those are the actions that we decided to put on because they are new bits of work that we are taking forward, or they are things that we had to carry forward from last year. I will have to go back and clarify why that was, but we were also trying to make sure that those were the most significant pieces of work —.
Mr Snowden: That is what the Minister wanted in the previous year.
Mr Snowden: It was "he" previously.
Mr Snowden: She did not ask for it to be included in this year's business plan specifically.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): Do you think that that is because the original date for that was 2024, and it still has not been introduced, so maybe the Minister was a bit embarrassed that he came out and made a bold claim that a new policy would be introduced, but it has not taken place nearly two years later, and it has now been entirely dropped from the business plan?
Mr Snowden: I do not know because I have not had a conversation with the Minister. I would have to speculate about that.
Mr Snowden: I will have to go back and check, but it depends on when the Minister wishes to do it. As I said, it is with her for her consideration.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): No problem.
On the legislative programme, the Minister rightly articulated the huge ambition that the Department had brought forward in relation to a number of Bills that it wants to see introduced. We are now at a stage where almost none of them will meet the targets that were first forwarded to that Committee. That is for a variety of reasons. Do you think that the Committee can take confidence in the new timelines, given the fact that the previous timelines were so badly wrong?
Mr Snowden: With the passage of time, the most recent estimates will become more accurate. All pieces of legislation have to be approved by the Executive before they can be introduced to the Assembly.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): For example, the 'good jobs' Bill does not sit with the Executive. It sits with the Minister who has not brought the Bill forward. The renewable energy price guarantee scheme, which was delayed from March 2025 to autumn 2025, to goodness knows when now, still has not been presented to the Executive. None of those is at the Executive table. They are at the table of the Department.
Mr Snowden: We have dates for when we intend to take those things to the Executive. I can go through those dates now, if you wish. There will be quite an increase in activity around that sort of space. A paper about the Utility Regulator decarbonisation Bill will go to the Executive for their meeting on 29 January.
Mr Snowden: That is next Thursday; it is the next scheduled meeting. I have not been told that they are not meeting.
Mr Snowden: The Utility Regulator decarbonisation Bill. Following that will be the onshore petroleum licensing Bill. That will be at the Executive meeting on 12 January.
Mr Snowden: Sorry, 12 February; you are right. A policy paper will set out all the detailed policy issues on the renewable electricity price guarantee (REPG) scheme. It is a large Bill. The correct procedure is to take the policy content and then the detail of the Bill — unless the Executive agree a detailed policy content, the Bill might not be what the Executive have approved. I believe that that is going to go to next Thursday's Executive meeting. That is what we are aiming for. If we do not make that, we are hoping for 12 January.
Mr Snowden: February, sorry.
Mr Snowden: Me too. I might get that one right about September.
We are hoping to take that detailed policy position paper. The Minister has said that she hopes to take something on the 'good jobs' Bill to next week's Executive meeting or the meeting on 12 February. We hope that that will be the detailed policy content, which, again, will be agreed by the Executive.
All those items have to be agreed for inclusion on the Executive's agenda for agreement and discussion, and they have to be agreed by the Executive. That is the schedule of time that we are working to. The employment rights Bill and the renewable electricity price guarantee scheme Bill are two significant policy issues, so I expect that they will be subject to quite a bit of discussion at the Executive and might not be approved at one meeting.
Mr Snowden: It is being drafted, but all of the detailed policy work is prepared. That is what we are going to take.
Mr Snowden: It would not be good practice to take a fully drafted Bill to the Executive if they had not agreed that policy content. The legislation gives legal expression to the policy decision.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): When was Executive approval given for the 'good jobs' Bill policy, given that the drafting of it is almost finished? I think that the Minister said that it would be finished in March.
Mr Snowden: That was a number of months ago. I would have to work out the exact date, but it was discussed, and it was agreed that drafting work would proceed.
Mr Snowden: We need to go back to the Executive to make sure that they are content with all the details, because, as the Minister said, some work has been done on that over the past number of months.
Mr Snowden: After that, we have to introduce the detailed work on the drafting of the employment rights Bill, and the renewable electricity price guarantee scheme Bill will come thereafter.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): Will the terms and conditions of the renewable electricity price guarantee scheme come before or after the legislation?
Mr Snowden: The detailed policy content will state the intention. A large body of regulations will have to follow on from the renewable electricity price guarantee scheme primary legislation. Some of it will be affirmative legislation, for which approval will have to come through the Assembly. That is why I said earlier in the meeting that that would probably not happen this side of the next election but would happen in the new mandate.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): This is a final question from me on the renewable electricity price guarantee scheme. Has the Minister taken a decision yet on community benefit?
Mr Snowden: In relation specifically to the price guarantee scheme? No.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): How can the Executive be expected to take a position on a Bill when the Minister has not even taken a position?
Mr Snowden: The electricity price guarantee scheme is about how the scheme will operate and will give the Department the powers. The detail of the like of community benefit will work through in the regulations.
Mr Snowden: I will have to check that detail, Chair.
Mr Buckley: I want to follow up on some of the commentary with the Minister. There was some confusion about what I meant when I was talking about the Invest NI report. It was signed off by the Minister, last week, to go to the Committee. That is where the data comes from. If HMRC has the data, why is the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) not publishing even the 2024 stats, never mind anything beyond that?
Mr Snowden: I cannot answer that question; I have no idea. However, I will check with the statisticians, who will be able to give reasons why they do things in the way that they do.
Mr Buckley: You accept that it is not fair on the Committee for the Minister to make bold statements, as she has via press release and at the start of the meeting, based on data that is not complete and which the Committee cannot draw from. How can we scrutinise it?
Mr Snowden: There are time delays on all sorts of statistical data that NISRA and others produce.
Mr Snowden: It is, but that is not uncommon with some of the economic indicators. When I looked at one yesterday, I saw that the most recent figures were from 2021. It takes time to collate, check and analyse figures, but I will come back to you with a specific answer.
Mr Buckley: In answer to the Chair's question about the 'good jobs' Bill, you said that the Minister would bring the policy in it before the Executive in the next couple of weeks. Is that right?
Mr Snowden: We are in discussions about what exactly she wants to take to the Executive. Parts of the Bill are fully drafted, and she may want to take those to the Executive with the detailed policy of the rest of the Bill, or she may take the policy of the whole thing and then the Bill.
Mr Buckley: You seemed shocked by the Minister's declaration that she would do that. Did it come as a shock to you?
Mr Snowden: We have discussed it, backwards and forwards, a couple of times, and different options have been presented. If she has now taken the view that she wants to take the bits of the Bill that are drafted, that is her choice.
Mr Buckley: Would you not have thought that she would discuss it with you before she came to the Committee?
Mr Snowden: We have regular discussions, but it is a finely balanced decision that entirely sits with her. I do not know whether "shocked" is the word, but —.
Mr Buckley: It seems bizarre.
Ian, on what date did you become permanent secretary?
Mr Snowden: I was temporarily promoted into the post on 8 December 2023 and substantively promoted from 20-something — I cannot remember the exact date — March 2024.
Mr Buckley: Were you with the Minister in the United States last year at her meetings?
Mr Buckley: No. Were you aware of the conversations about the meeting with Cantor Fitzgerald that the Minister was involved in?
Mr Snowden: I knew that the meeting had taken place and that, at that point, it had said that it would not proceed with the investment.
Mr Buckley: My understanding is that, before that point, there had been an indication of a considerable number of jobs. Do you have the figure?
Mr Buckley: Up to 300 jobs. Wow. That is a considerable number. What led to the withdrawal of that potential investment?
Mr Snowden: I do not have the detail. However, one assessment, given that a senior executive or leader of Cantor Fitzgerald is a member of President Trump's Cabinet, was that the policy position that the Trump presidency was taking on overseas investment might not have aligned with a decision to invest at that point.
Mr Buckley: Or it might not have aligned with the Minister's position on some of the issues. Three hundred is a considerable jobs announcement. My understanding is that, when the Minister travelled, the meeting was to be almost a rubber-stamping exercise. How big a shock was it that the company decided to withdraw?
Mr Snowden: We did not have any prior notification that it was thinking of doing so.
Mr Buckley: OK. Are records of the meeting held by the Department?
Mr Snowden: Records are maintained of all the Minister's meetings.
Mr Buckley: Is it not astounding that, nearly a year on, neither the Committee nor the Assembly was aware that 300 jobs had been lost in that visit?
Mr Snowden: Prospective inward investments regularly fall through: it is not a unique occurrence.
Mr Buckley: Has any US investor ever expressed concern about the Minister's policy positions, her public commentary or, indeed, that of her party on investment decisions?
Mr Snowden: Not to me nor, I believe, to any official in the Department.
Mr Buckley: I will finish on this point. A worrying theme is developing. We have a Minister who did not meet Bank of America when it was here to announce jobs and was at the Assembly.
Mr Snowden: Information that we released from the Department shows that she asked to meet but that the meeting could not be held.
Mr Buckley: There have been a number of occasions on which the Minister has not met it face to face. Is it fair to say that?
Mr Snowden: She has not met it. We attempted to get a meeting with Bank of America when she previously went to the United States, but it was not possible to make it work with her itinerary. It has not been the Minister's deliberate policy not to meet Bank of America.
Mr Buckley: As permanent secretary, will you commit to releasing all information pertaining to the meeting with Cantor Fitzgerald in the United States last year over the St Patrick's day period to ensure that we can get to the bottom of why 300 jobs did not come to Northern Ireland following that meeting?
Mr Snowden: The reason is that the company decided not to invest.
Mr Snowden: The reasons given at the meeting? I was not at it.
Mr Snowden: I was not at it. I am sorry; I cannot say what the reasons stated were. The report that I got was that, unexpectedly, the company announced at that point that it was not going to proceed.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): Did you not ask her for the reasons? You are the permanent secretary, and an official comes back from America and says, "Here, boss, the 300 jobs that I thought I was going to sign off on are not happening", and you just said, "Oh, OK". You did not ask a single question about it?
Mr Snowden: No, I did. That is why I said that one of the assessments was that we —.
Mr Snowden: Well, that was the principal one. I do not want to name individuals, because that creates difficulties. One of the assessments was that a senior representative of the company, who had a role in President Trump's Cabinet, was the principal driving reason why —.
Mr Snowden: That was our assessment of it. I cannot say that it was stated at the meeting, because I was not at the meeting, as I have already said.
Mr Snowden: I was not there. The meeting was quite short, from the account that I heard, so I do not know. I will provide whatever information we have in the Department.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): Now, you are saying that the meeting was very short. You are saying that the Minister walked in, and they said, "I am sorry, Minister, but we are not investing". That is fair enough. They are bound to have given a reason for not investing. You are saying that you did not ask what reasons they gave.
Mr Snowden: I do not want to breach any confidences that the company provided. It gave the reason that it was not going to proceed with investment overseas.
Mr Buckley: You have now stated that the company gave a specific reason. I expect the Committee to be furnished with the reasons provided so that we can ascertain its reasoning for not investing in Northern Ireland and whether the Minister's position on policy issues was a factor.
Mr Snowden: We will get the record of the meeting.
Miss Dolan: I want to make a quick point. The permanent secretary has made it clear that he was not at the meeting.
Miss Dolan: I do not think that there is any more that he can give us.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): The point that I was making, Jemma, was that if I was the permanent secretary and the Department expected my officials to come back with 300 jobs, and we had a short meeting in which we were told, "Sorry, the jobs are not coming", I would have asked for the reasons why those jobs were not coming. The permanent secretary has kindly agreed to provide us with the stated reasons.
Mr Honeyford: Thank you, Ian. I want to get clarity on the timelines. A policy document goes to the Executive, and the Executive agree it. Then you bring your legislative stuff to the Executive. I appreciate that you cannot give a timeline for the Executive. It sounds as if you are going to be really busy for the next two weeks. The policy side of the 'good jobs' Bill will come forward in the next two weeks — I will say it like that. When will the legislation go to the Executive? You cannot answer when it will come here, but it will follow from that.
Mr Snowden: Subject to the final drafting of the Bill, which, we believe, will be at or by the end of March. Easter is in the first week of April, and I believe that the first Executive meeting after that will be on 16 April — although the timings of Executive meetings change — and the Executive will consider the detailed content of the Bill. It will be subject to Executive agreement on its introduction, which will determine the exact time at which it will come in.
Mr Honeyford: The 'good jobs' Bill will go to the Executive in April and then will come to us.
Mr Snowden: Subject to a series of agreements and decisions that will be taken by the Executive. If the Executive are not content to agree the policy content, the Bill cannot be agreed.
Mr Honeyford: Is the date basically the same for the renewable energy Bill?
Mr Snowden: We may not get the detailed Bill on 16 April. That depends on the progress of the policy discussions at the Executive and on whether any changes to the Bill need to be made on the back of that. Our aim is late May.
Mr Honeyford: If the 'good jobs' Bill does not go through and there is a delay in policy, do they rotate? Does the renewable energy Bill come forward, or will you just stick with the 'good jobs' Bill?
Mr Snowden: That will depend on the timing of decisions taken by the Executive and the progress in finalising the drafting of the Bill. It is not simply a matter of swapping one for the other in those sorts of times. We will progress all of them as quickly as we can.
Mr Honeyford: When will we go to offshore wind power? You talked about 2026 and 2027. What if it is not in this mandate, but you are hoping to get it to —?
Mr Snowden: It is within this mandate. That is the 2026-27 Assembly term, which starts on 1 September.
Mr Snowden: Again, that is a bit further out, so the times will not be quite as precise as the ones that I have just given you for those in the current Assembly term. However, if we can make sufficient progress, I hope that we will see it being introduced to the Executive for their decisions in the early part of the autumn.
Mr Snowden: It depends on the size of the Bill. However, sometimes it is possible to take both the policy and the detail of the Bill simultaneously, as we are doing with the utility regulator Bill, because it is just one page. It is a simple, straightforward Bill. If it is a more detailed and complex piece of legislation, it is better to do the two consecutively.
Mr Honeyford: Has the Department the capacity to do all that in this mandate?
Mr Snowden: The Department has about 1,200 staff, but large chunks of them are engaged in direct service delivery. We have limited resources in the teams that we have for legislative work. The offshore renewable work is being done by the same team that does the renewable electricity work and the onshore petroleum licensing. Therefore, it is a matter of sequencing the work for those teams. The credit union Bill is being worked on by the team working on the 'good jobs' Bill. There are capacity issues. I will not pretend that they do not exist. We still hope to get all eight pieces of legislation through in the mandate. However, I cannot guarantee it.
Mr Honeyford: I am trying to get an overall picture. Every time we meet, the dates are completely different. I am trying to understand the timescales. After all, we only have 14 months.
Mr Snowden: I understand that it causes problems for the Committee, because you need to schedule your work around it.
Ms McLaughlin: Thank you for all your answers so far, Ian. Can you give me an update on the enhanced investment zones and what they will look like? They were announced two years ago by Westminster, with an allocation to Northern Ireland of £150 million. Yet I really do not have any concept of what they will entail. Can you tell me how they will make an impact on delivering regional balance?
Mr Snowden: The detail of the enhanced investment zones is still being considered by the Executive. It will evolve over time. There are a number of themes to it. One is photonics. Basically, the overall intention of the enhanced investment zone proposition that we have at the minute is that it will focus on advanced manufacturing and green industries. Those are the two main themes.
In advanced manufacturing, we are looking at photonics development, which is based on the capacity that we have at the Seagate facility in Maydown.
That is a significant portion of it. There are lots of other propositions, and they centre on wet labs and a project called "We Are Pioneer".
I can get full details for the Committee. There have been several briefings on it laying out what it is. Contingent on the decisions made by the individual businesses involved, there is a plan for a maintenance, repair and overhaul facility for aircraft. That possibility might be included, although it is still being discussed with the firms involved. There are quite a number of —.
Mr Snowden: It is likely to be at Belfast International Airport or its environs. However, that is a decision for the company.
Ms McLaughlin: Will there be regional balance in where the investments go or is it just more of the same?
Mr Snowden: I did point out that a large chunk of it will be the photonics development in Maydown. That is a significant portion of the enhanced investment zone. In the enhanced investment zone there is the option for tax relief areas. However, that will not be part of our proposition because we believe that it would dilute the impact and would be less effective than the direct funding of some interventions.
Ms McLaughlin: Why are those things taking so long? It has been two years in the making. The need is great, yet the pace is slow.
Mr Snowden: We have to agree it with the UK Government. It might have been last year when I was at a Committee meeting here, and the UK Government announced that they were pausing all the work on them for some months. That was Rachel Reeves's first Budget.
Ms McLaughlin: Yes, but it was for only a number of months. Surely, we were progressing on the basis that it would be going ahead because I do not think that anybody thought, "That's it, over and out".
Mr Snowden: Work stopped on the UK Government side, so there was very little that we could progress with them at that point. We got through the first three gateway stages and moved to gateway stage 4, which is the one that we are currently working on. A proposition has been discussed with the Executive at a number of meetings, and we are answering questions from Ministers about it.
Ms McLaughlin: Some city and growth deals are in the process of delivery in my constituency. Are there any other areas that you are concerned about? Some of them have been long in the making as well, and the longer the delay in major projects, the more time runs out and the greater the costs become. Will you give me a brief overview? I see that it is at "amber" in your business plan, but are there areas that the Committee needs to be concerned about regarding delivery of growth deals?
Mr Snowden: One project has fallen out of the Belfast city region deal. I am sure that the Committee is aware of the Mournes gateway project, which was for a gondola on Slieve Donard. The National Trust decided that it was not content to allow its land to be used as part of the landing zone for it because of concerns about the environmental impact on Slieve Donard. That project has come out of the programme. It is for the city region deal consortium, which is made up of councils, to decide what project it wants to take forward. We have been giving it advice and information to help it to make a decision. However, the decision rests fully with the consortium.
There have been delays with the Royal Hillsborough project while we resolve traffic-management issues through the centre of the village. There was a slight change to the proposition with it, but I think that that has been resolved and the project is moving forward to the addendum to the business case.
The Gobbins cliff path has experienced delays as a consequence of the cost estimates pretty much doubling from the original proposition. That is because of the technical challenges of construction there becoming more fully understood. However, we are in discussions about what revised form that project might take.
We have signed off on the Derry North Atlantic Museum as part of the Derry and Strabane city deal, and we are working with Ulster University on the cognitive analytics and digital robotic innovation centre (CADRIC) development, which is allied with the Magee expansion.
We are making progress on quite a number of projects, and it has certainly sped up, although that is not to say that there are not projects that experience difficulties. This week, we had the sod-cutting on Momentum One Zero, one of the significant Belfast projects. The advanced manufacturing innovation centre (AMIC) project at Global Point Business Park, Newtownabbey, is close to completion, and Studio Ulster has been launched. Quite a number of projects are moving ahead.
Ms McLaughlin: I have another question in relation to Tourism NI and Tourism Ireland. The Minister spoke about the Hidden Heartlands brand going cross-border. I am very keen to see the same applied to the Wild Atlantic Way, and I am disappointed that, at this stage, we have not got over the line with that. Where are we with discussions so that the project can move forward at pace?
Mr Snowden: There have been a lot of discussions about that. The key point to stress, however, is that those brands are owned by Fáilte Ireland, so it will always be its decision whether it wishes to extend them into Northern Ireland. The Wild Atlantic Way is a long-established and very successful brand for Fáilte Ireland. It is, understandably, cautious about anything that might dilute that. It is very much landscape-based branding, as is Ireland's Hidden Heartlands; it is about cliffs, beaches, coastlines and the like.
There is a lot of alignment with the north coast and the Causeway coast and glens area, which have a very similar kind of landscape. To be blunt, Fáilte Ireland told us that it has a concern that if it extends its brand, which is for the west coast of Ireland, to the north coast, it may be pressured to extend it to the south, which has a completely different landscape. It thinks that that would dilute a brand that it is very careful to protect.
The conversations continue regularly.
Ms McLaughlin: Where does it not want that branding to go? It does not want it to go to northwards. It goes from west Cork right through. Can we not work with it to negotiate where the brand goes? It is the Wild Atlantic Way; it is the west.
Mr Snowden: As I said, those discussions are ongoing.
Ms McLaughlin: We know where the Atlantic is and we know where we are, so can we not work with it?
Mr Snowden: We are working with it. I do not want anybody to have the impression that there has been no discussion or that no effort has been made in that regard. However, ultimately, it is the decision of the brand owner to make.
Ms McLaughlin: So, you are progressing it; you are not walking away from it.
How much did the Minister say she has allocated to developing the Ireland's Hidden Heartlands brand?
Ms McLaughlin: That is what I thought. Do you know whether Fáilte Ireland is asking for any money for working with us on the Wild Atlantic Way brand? Are any such discussions taking place?
Mr Snowden: That is money that will be spent in Fermanagh. It is, for example, for branding, promotional materials and that sort of activity.
Mr Snowden: Yes. It has not asked for any money in that regard. We have reached an agreement. Ireland's Hidden Heartlands is a landscape-based brand around lakes and rivers. Fermanagh fits very well into that.
Ms D Armstrong: Thank you, Ian, for your responses so far. I take you back to the enterprise investment zones. You mentioned the maintenance repair facility for aircraft. What sort of criteria are applied in expressions of interest to someone who wants to create such a facility?
Mr Snowden: All the proposals in the enhanced investment zone come from responses that we have received from industry. Although those players are attracted to Northern Ireland because of the availability of some financial support, many places also offer that. What really attracts them here is our skills pipeline because of our existing aerospace industry. We have a very good aeronautical engineering faculty at Queen's, and the further education colleges already provide a large number of people trained in aerospace because of the work of Spirit AeroSystems and other companies in Northern Ireland. It is the skills pipeline that has really attracted the intention of potential investors.
Ms D Armstrong: Thank you for that. I live close to a regional airport. There has been interest previously from an investor to do simulated training in a facility such as that. It is important to provide the regional airports with opportunities, so I appreciate your answer.
On Ireland's Hidden Heartlands, what impact will the VAT differential have? Of course, we want to attract visitors to Fermanagh, but will they stay to enjoy hospitality in Fermanagh, or will it be a day trip? What about electronic travel authorisation (ETA) for overseas visitors? Is there a solution to those two barriers?
Mr Snowden: By being part of that branding, we hope that people will come to stay in Fermanagh. It is not yet clear whether the impact of the ETA will be significant. The tour operators that bring people from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland on day trips had concerns about the impact on them, and some people talked about taking Northern Ireland's locations out of their itineraries. At this point, I have not seen any significant data that indicates that there has been a drop-off because of the ETA. Our tourism figures for last year showed a decline in overall bed nights from the previous year, but that was driven by the domestic market as opposed to the figures for overseas visitors, which remained very strong.
Mr Snowden: It is a matter for the UK Government; we do not have control over much of that. Both the current and the previous Minister made representations to the UK Government about matching the VAT rate for hospitality with the rate in the Republic of Ireland. The issue is now gaining traction in Britain. However, we have no control over the VAT rate.
Ms D Armstrong: There is the pilot scheme proposition. Yes. Thank you, Ian.
Mr Snowden: I am the principal accounting officer, but the chief executive is the accounting officer for Tourism NI,
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): I looked through its accounts, and there is a compromise agreement in the accounts for 2023-24 at a cost of £21,000. Do you know what that is?
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): The answer to a question for written answer that I submitted was that it was to settle "an internal dispute", but it cost the Northern Ireland budget £21,000.
Mr Snowden: It is probably a personnel-related matter, which may have been a claim or a grievance taken against management, although I have no idea of the details. I am surmising at this stage.
Mr Snowden: I can find out for you.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): Perfect. My final question is about the Executive time frames. Has a time frame been scheduled for the Minister to complete policy development on her ethical development framework? Has a date been scheduled for that to be brought to the Executive?
Mr Snowden: Not yet because the work has not been completed.
Mr Snowden: We have done the policy development work, which can be taken to the Executive. The final work on the Bill content is different.
Mr Snowden: It has not been done on the ethical investment framework, but we need to take the detail to the Executive for agreement. That is the purpose of taking it to the Executive.
Mr Snowden: I did not say that no policy work had been done on it; I said that it had not been completed.
Mr Snowden: I do not know the exact time frames, but the Minister has asked for it to be completed as quickly as possible because it has been a matter of contention. Therefore, it is better to get it done and resolved quickly.
Mr Snowden: Yes. That is the Minister's intention.
The Chairperson (Mr Brett): Ian, thank you so much, as always. I appreciate your time. I thank you and your colleagues for all the work that you do and wish you continued success.