Moving economic connections beyond Dublin and London

The programme promotes economic, civic and academic connections between the regions of Ireland the UK.

On his visit, he also announced the appointment of Katherine Fitzpatrick as the British Embassy's new Honorary Consul for the South-West of Ireland.

Mr Johnston said Joining the Dots was a programme that was ahead of its time. "It was something that was conceived at quite a difficult time in the relationship. We were part way through the Brexit saga, we didn't quite know how it would turn out, and that was obviously a period of some uncertainty for the British-Irish relationship generally, including the business relationship."

"The idea behind it was two-fold, one to sort of express confidence in the long-term relationship knowing that whatever was happening in the Brexit negotiations we'd get on to a stable fruiting, but two was that we wanted to show that the British-Irish relationship was more than just the government's in London and Dublin. 

"It was actually regions and people and business and culture and new sectors across the whole of Ireland and across the whole of the UK, hence consciously starting it in Cork rather than in Dublin.

Joining the Dots was established in 2018 by the then foreign affairs and trade minister Simon Coveney, in partnership with Cork Chamber of Commerce. A report published at the time identified untapped opportunities to connect business, researchers and academia to promote UK–Irish economic growth. 

A survey of businesses at the time found 93% envisaged future potential for expanded collaboration between the UK and Ireland, with the opportunity of addressing the lack of networks and knowledge gap between both areas as being instrumental in developing collaboration.

Brexit

While Brexit was flagged as a concern in multiple cases, many organisations in both Ireland and the UK felt the businesses in their region were operating "business as usual". 

The UK remains a key target market and export region for Irish firms. For an SME, it is often its first export market. Similarly, Ireland is seen as a logical first step for many UK companies seeking to test their capability in overseas markets.

"Things like Russia and Ukraine remind us that, in a way, our safest and most secure trading partners are those nearest to us. Because of the proximity, because the people are so connected there is a bit of a risk that we can you know, we could take each other for granted," the ambassador said.

"I think Joining the Dots was something that was quite sort of purposeful about reminding each other that we exist — I think particularly perhaps reminding the British business sector that Ireland exists as a close and friendly market and a very obviously prosperous country."

Since its establishment, there has been significant activity in Cork and beyond and the programme has expanded to Galway, Limerick and Derry as well as Manchester, Birmingham and Coventry. Many regions use the programme to focus on a specific area. 

Derry, for example, focuses on healthcare. Cork places a strong emphasis on climate change and sustainability, seeing what learnings can be made through stronger connections with other regions.

To mark the fifth anniversary, two days of events took place this week where the ambassador met with Cork Chamber CEO Conor Healy and the Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Kieran McCarthy. He also visited a number of locations in Cork, including UCC and met with representatives from the Cork business and academic community.

On Thursday, a day-long conference hosted by Cork City Council and the embassy took place in Cork and focused on retrofitting homes and buildings and the challenges regions like Cork can face. Those addressing the conference came from a variety of backgrounds and sectors and from different regions across Ireland and the UK.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner following her appointment, Ms Fitzpatrick said the aim of the voluntary role is to encourage greater business, research, civic and cultural connections between the South-West of Ireland and UK regions and expand on the work already carried out in the past five years.

There are so many opportunities for connecting the South-West of Ireland with the UK regions. Obviously business is one perspective but also civic, cultural and research through the education sector. 

"It's really about the opportunity for the embassy to grow its networks in the South-West. It will be about facilitating introductions, facilitating conversations and seeing where those go."

Opportunity for regions

She said there was a significant opportunity for regions to create their own connections outside of their capitals. "London and Dublin do fine, by virtue of the fact they are capital cities. They naturally have the pull, they have the delegations, they have the trade shows they have a lot going on but throughout the regions we said, we could be doing more," Ms Fitzpatrick said.

Mr Johnston said growth for regions outside their capitals was a priority for both countries. 

"In the last couple of years, when Boris Johnson came into power in Britain, we had this emphasis on so-called levelling up, the idea that if the economy was going to grow sustainably it couldn't just depend on the city of London or the South-East of England. 

"I guess you've got the same thing here in the National Infrastructure Plan and the National Development Plan that Dublin and the multinationals are not a sustainable basis for your economic development and now Cork needs to flourish and Galway needs to flourish and so I think in that sense we were sort of anticipating some of the trends that have that are developed in the last few years."

He said looking to the future many of the concerns over Brexit have been allayed and businesses now have a level of certainty. 

"The fact that we have the Trade and Cooperation Agreement settled, the fact that in Northern Ireland we have the Windsor Framework settled and the government's quite clear that we're not reopening that, we're not going back on that, then business knows both in Ireland in the Northern Ireland what's going to be the framework of the UK-EU relationship and therefore the UK-Irish relationship for the years to come."

"Now, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement gets renewed in 2025 which is after our next general election. Personally speaking, it doesn't look like there will be big structural shifts in the relationship whatever the election outcome. 

"I think people can plan with confidence that the broad outlines of where we are, is where we would remain. Similarly, there will be a vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly after a four-year period on the Windsor Framework, but again, I think you would expect, looking at current trends in North Ireland that people would think that is a good solution. 

It gives Northern Ireland access to the EU single market for goods, to the UK single market as well, so you would hope that in both those respects, business would be able to plan their investments confidently for the future knowing that the overall new parameters of our relationships are clear in a way that they certainly weren't five years ago."