Mr. Dáithí O'Ceallaigh:

Yes. I would like to add something to what Mr. Arnold said. There is room for development in the North-South and east-west organisations, bodies such as the British-Irish Parliamentary Group and the British-Irish Council. They could for example meet more frequently and be opened more widely to discuss different issues. If the British pull out, and they are pulling out, we are going to lose that constant interaction in Brussels. Therefore, we have to try to replace it by a many more meetings across the Border with local authorities, the British-Irish parliamentary groups, visits by the Oireachtas to Northern Ireland and so on. There are many ways in which the relationships which have been built up since the Good Friday Agreement, as Mr. Arnold rightly mentioned, can be developed further to try to compensate for what we are losing in Brussels.

It is clear, however, and we should not miss it, that the Commission in particular is concerned not to lose the advantages which have accrued over the last 20 years by the support which the Commission and the European institutions gave in Northern Ireland and across the Border. The sort of problems that were mentioned, including meetings of authorities across the Border, the use of a hospital in Derry by people from Donegal or vice versa, should all become, and I certain will become part of the negotiations. The Irish Government will ensure that those issues are brought into the negotiations. I would suggest that the more of those problems one finds that require practical solutions, the more they should be fed to the Irish Government so that they can be raised in the negotiations to obtain better outcomes.

I am not an expert in the justice area but I do know that there is close contact between the justice authorities in this country, particularly the Garda Síochána, and what is going on in Europol, Forex and various European organisations that are trying to deal with international crime. Schengen is slightly different. It is all about control of entry into the European Union. Once such controlled entry is permitted, people are then free to move around the EU. We are not in Schengen because we are in the travel area with the UK and perhaps that is something we may have to look at. From my little experience of it, however, I think the practical co-operation between security and intelligence forces across Europe is very good.