New cross-border strategies to protect children from paedophiles are being planned by education ministers, it was announced today.
Members of the education sector of the North-South Ministerial Council disclosed the proposals after a meeting of the body in south Dublin.
And €5 million are being made available to promote co-operation between different schools across the island to boost "peace and reconciliation", as the Belfast Agreement grinds forward.
Minster for Education, Dr Michael Woods, joined his Stormont counterpart Mr Martin McGuinness for a meeting of the body which was established under the 1998 Agreement.
Dr Woods explained that €5 million were being made available under the European Union Peace II strategy.
The money would be used to encourage schools to put forward cross border and cross community proposals as part of reconciling people stricken by 30 years of the Troubles.
He said: "There is a great deal of good will in our schools. We have people in schools who want to co-operate and this will provide funds and resources for imaginative progress on cooperation."
Sinn Féin's Mr McGuinness said: "We are acutely aware of our responsibilities to ensure the protection of children.
"We have a responsibility on a north-south basis to ensure that there are no loopholes to allow paedophiles to prey on children."
He said there were plans for a confidential register, although details had to be finalised over who would be able to view it and the ways of establishing it.
Separate laws would have to be enacted in both the Oireachtas and the Stormont Assembly, he said.
Mr Nesbitt, of the Ulster Unionist Party, added that there were "no boundaries or borders to the imperative of protecting or working in the interests of children".
