Mr. Peter Sheridan:

In response to Senator Black's comments on the Good Friday Agreement, most of my commentary has been about its protection. We need to keep it on the agenda and to keep raising it at every level. Whether the committee invites in one Minister or 15 Ministers, we need to keep alive the importance of the Agreement. As to why people have not softened around the issue of Brexit, I met a stranger as I was travelling on the train to this meeting and he told me he had voted to leave the Union. He asked why, if it was so good in Europe, do we still have so much employment and problems. We had a debate around it but he was not moving from his position. Even though he could not tell me what the opportunities would be, his concerns were still the same around it. He was a decent guy and had made a legitimate decision on it, even though it might have been different from that of most of us. On the issue of European law, the Good Friday Agreement was lodged not only in Europe but in the United Nations. As I am not a lawyer, I do not know what the impact of all of that will be in terms of the negotiations, but the Agreement was lodged in the United Nations as part of an international Agreement.