The 25-year-old initially started his career with the Republic's Under-19s and Under-21s but never made an appearance for the senior team, and conversations began with O'Neill about switching his allegiance.

And those conversations have only intensified since the former Cliftonville man, who scored twice in the Irish Cup Final last season, started the season with four goals for Ross County, three of which have come in the BetMcLean League Cup.

Unfortunately his clearance hasn't come in in time for Hale to be called up to the squad for next week's games against Luxembourg and Bulgaria, but O'Neill confirmed that the process is under way and could see him feature in October's international window when Northern Ireland face Belarus and Bulgaria.

"Ronan and I spoke before he went to Ross County and then shortly after, and he indicated he wanted to go through the international transfer process, for which he's doing the paperwork," explained the manager.

"He's lodged it with FIFA, so we have to wait until that's confirmed.

We can't pick him at this minute in time.

"Another player who was not selected for the squad was striker Lee Bonis, who recently made the switch from Larne to Dutch second division side ADO Den Haag, but O'Neill revealed that he has been having positive talks with the former call-up.

Lee Bonis has joined Dutch second division side ADO Den Haag from Larne"Lee Bonis has moved to the second division in Holland, we had communication with Lee as well and it's good to see him hit the ground running there," he added.

"It was a decision that he made.

Players make these decisions.

It's a higher level of football.

He's at a team that will have ambitions to play in the top division and have been in the top division.

He wants to better himself.

"It's a brave move to go abroad.

There was always clubs interested in Lee and I've been asked many times about Lee by clubs in League One or League Two in England.

He's taken a different path which I think is good and I think is the right path for him to take.

I'm delighted he's chosen to go abroad but it was his decision.

"I didn't communicate leading up to it.

I knew that it was happening.

Tiernan had been in communication with me on another matter and we spoke about Lee, he said about the opportunity to go abroad.

I'm delighted that it's come to fruition.

"He's come in a little bit late.

He's a little bit older, he's come through the Irish League route.

Hopefully he can make a big impact there.

"After relegation last time out, Northern Ireland start life in League C of the Nations League next week aiming to get back up into the second tier, which would bring with it ties against bigger teams.

That bid starts with wins at home to Luxembourg on Thursday and then away to Bulgaria on Sunday but O'Neill is taking a longer term approach with what he wants to see from these two games.

"I think the performance is important.

We played well here against Denmark and possibly in the other games here we didn't play as well at home," conceded O'Neill.

"We had a disjointed team, mainly because of injuries and we lost players through the games with injuries.

In the last four or five games we've been able to pick a more consistent team and I'd like to continue to do that and hopefully get that consistency of selection so that players are building relationships, building partnerships as well.

"It's nice to play well at home and do well and let the people see young Northern Ireland players and see that something good is happening and will continue to develop and give us some great nights to look ahead to.

".