The Member and I, among others, were present when the Taoiseach visited the north-west a number of weeks ago. The Taoiseach spoke about the importance of the north-west gateway initiative, which is hugely important to everyone who lives in that area.

Since taking up the post of Minister for Employment and Learning, Sir Reg Empey has consistently reiterated the importance of skilling our workforce so that it meets the needs of a changing world. That is a huge priority for him. We have been to the United States on several occasions, and he and I were on a delegation together during the Smithsonian Festival. In all the engagements that we were involved in, it was clear that he considers developing skills a priority on which his Department needed to major.

It is still early days. However, the economic invest­ment conference will take place in May, and many business groups from the United States will probably come to the North before that. In our attempts to attract more inward investment, we hope to interest many of those groups in the situation in the north-west, especially as the recent devastating news in Limavady has created an issue that must be addressed.

Other good work has been done on roads in the north-west. Roads are key to infrastructure, and they encourage people to visit particular areas. The universities in that area have been working to attract more people to their institutions.

Sir Reg Empey was involved in a sectoral meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council in Dublin in recent weeks, and he majored on the issue of a skills strategy, which is rightly a priority.