Dr. Conor Patterson:

I will reply to a few questions. I will take Deputy Breathnach's questions in addition to some of Senator Feighan's. It is incumbent on the Irish Government to assert its position as a sovereign EU member state. In response to Deputy Breathnach, connectivity requires Irish Government engagement. It cannot happen without the sponsorship of the two states. It is an intergovernmental challenge and both Governments have to assert a commitment to it. The Irish Government's role, in particular with respect to Northern Ireland under the auspices of the Good Friday Agreement, as co-guarantor, is crucial. As he correctly said, free movement depends on that connectivity being guaranteed. The issue is how we handle all of this. It requires special status for Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement is a special status framework. There is precedent. It is underpinned by €2 billion of funding from the EU, so the special circumstances or status of Northern Ireland is widely recognised across the EU, but that must be asserted by the Irish Government because, unfortunately, it is not likely that the British Government will have the special circumstances of Northern Ireland at the head of its negotiating objectives, whereas the Irish Government must have.

The House of Lords report is comprehensive and it at least recognises those special circumstances, but the Irish Government, to use a phrase with great resonance in Northern Ireland, in particular for Northern Nationalists, cannot stand idly by on this subject. This is as big a challenge as the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, if not greater, because the currents then were moving in favour of greater all-Ireland collaboration. The background circumstances were advantageous and helped the commitment being made by both Governments and externally by the Americans and the EU. Those circumstances have changed and the intergovernmental challenge, as was rightly said, for UK-Irish relations is much greater now and is truly a challenge. The scale of the situation needs to be understood in Dublin. This is a Good Friday Agreement moment that we are in just now and that needs to be faced up to.