The British-Irish Council proposed in the Belfast Agreement will re-establish the link between Scotland and Ireland to the substantial benefit of both, the leader of the Scottish National Party, Mr Alex Salmond, has said.
"Our relationship has strong roots in the past, but in the last few centuries it has been dislocated by the affairs of the United Kingdom," he told the Humbert Summer School in Ballina, Co Mayo. "Now, for the first time in many generations, there is coming into being a structure which can allow us to communicate directly, work together on shared interests and influence each other by example."
There were four priorities he had in mind for a start: education, culture and the media, transport and Europe. "If our two educational systems can learn from each other and if we can assess and implement the types of educational investment which you have undertaken, then we can put flesh on the bones of our relationship and make it work for our futures," he said.
There was also great potential in cultural and media matters. Ireland's positive approach to film-making and its encouragement of artists were areas Scotland could learn from and emulate.
"We should also be working to learn more of each other through broadcasting and the media, encouraging perhaps a new shared television channel on one of the digital multiplexes," he said.
Speaking on constitutional reform in British politics, Mr John McFall, Health Minister at the Northern Ireland Office, said it would require a change of mindset which would see confrontation giving way to partnership. The people of Northern Ireland would benefit from devolution just as much as the people of Scotland and Wales, and all of Britain and Ireland would still be under the beneficial influence of the EU.
Mr Pat "the Cope" Gallagher, MEP for Connacht-Ulster, said that in submitting its national development plan to the EU Commission, the Government should be obliged to ensure that the counties along the Border and in the west and midlands qualified for Objective One status in the allocation of European funds to which they were entitled.
Mr Sean Barrett, a former minister for defence, urged that Ireland, because of its experience in peacekeeping, should take a lead in the formation of an EU peacekeeping force that would be available to the United Nations at all times.
Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain ein TD said Sinn Fein believed the creation of one big state in Europe was fundamentally undemocratic, because it removed political sovereignty from states with democratically elected governments to a centralised bureaucracy with "only a fig-leaf of democratic accountability".