North/South Ministerial Council

HC Deb 19 November 2003 vol 413 cc952-3W

Mrs. Iris Robinson

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many times the North/South Ministerial Council has met as indicated in the 1998 Belfast Agreement(a) in Plenary format, (b) in specific sectoral formats, represented by the individual Ministers and (c) to consider cross-sectoral matters. [132091]

Mr. Paul Murphy

The North/South Ministerial Council, since its establishment in 1999, has met four times in Plenary format, once in Institutional format to consider cross-sectoral matters and 60 times in specific sectoral format.

A breakdown of specific sectoral meetings is provided as follows:

Specific sectoral area	Number of meetings
Agriculture	7
Education	4
Environment	6
Aquaculture and Marine	8
Health and Food Safety	5
Language	4
Special EU Programmes	7
Tourism	5
Trade and Business Development	7
Transport	2
Inland Waterways	5
Total	60