Mr. Mark Durkan:

Like other members, I want to particularly thank both witnesses, given the breadth and depth of their respective experience, as others have commented. They have insight which probably leaves them better qualified at foresight than nearly anybody else might be on this very uncertain and uncharted situation in which we find ourselves.

The witnesses have covered a number of points with regard to the sectoral impacts. Those points have been very well brought out. As I said at a previous meeting, this is an antidote to many people's assumption that there will be a crock of gold at the end of the Brexit rainbow for farmers and others in the North.

I would like to ask the witnesses about some of the issues we will face as we go forward. They recognise that there are big challenges and uncertainties. They have said that some working opportunities may emerge from some of the channels for co-operation and engagement that exist.

My first question relates to the working of strand 2 of the Agreement. It should not be underestimated that when negotiations took place in the aftermath of the Agreement regarding what a North-South body should be - the Agreement itself provided that there would be at least six implementation bodies - the political reality was that there was Unionist resistance to bodies having any kind of meaningful scope, any kind of mission or any possibility for expansion. The test rule for them was that it had to be co-operation of purely mutual interest that would be happening anyway.

It is clear when one examines the main business of most of the implementation bodies that they are focused on EU funding or on compliance with EU regulations. The work of the Special EU Programmes Body and Waterways Ireland relates to directives and the management of funding. InterTrade Ireland is probably the most market-facing of the bodies. Much of what it does is about raising awareness of European challenge funds and other innovative opportunities and areas of co-operation. Much of the work of the Food Safety Promotion Board relates to compliance. Obviously, the Loughs Agency builds on a previous model. Much of its work involves environmental directives and other common issues. While it might be distinctive to hear certain phrases, a large part of the cover for much of the work of the Language Body is in the context of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

If we do not have the commonality of interest, the funding or the compliance questions provided by the EU, what will we have in terms of strand 2 and the working arrangements under strand 2? We will be talking about very thin fillings in the strand 2 sandwich. That will become a key political issue because people will say the Agreement is not working in the same terms they expected. That is quite apart from the failure of the Agreement to develop beyond those six bodies, which had their budgets cut in the name of austerity a few years ago and were subject to value for money tests as a result of the St. Andrews review.

The other side of the St. Andrews Agreement was the promise that there could be new areas of co-operation. It was suggested that the reviews could look at other work, but nothing has ever developed from that. When many of us look at this, we say we cannot be complacent and we are not reassured by those who suggest everything will work out and will be taken forward in a post-Brexit situation. Very little has happened. Strand 2 has been run low and has stayed slow for a long time now. It is hard to see how this would not continue after Brexit. That is one of the reasons this issue and other Brexit issues will loom much larger than many people realise when negotiations take place after the election. All of these issues might not be resolved in time for the formation of an executive within the deadline. They might be part of a wider negotiation, possibly using some of the review mechanisms under the Agreement.

I note what has been said about strand 3 and the British-Irish Council. It is probable that there are a number of areas in which it might be easier to engage Whitehall's interest in the potential for co-operation and engagement. When Whitehall departments are not sending as many officials to various meetings in Brussels and elsewhere, they might well have more time to look at other potential forms of co-operation. Of course that raises a political tension that arose when the Agreement was being negotiated. Some people did not want strand 2 to exist at all. They said it should be a mere subset of strand 3. This opportunity brings potential political tension with it.

It has been suggested that the Commission would have a strong interest in being concerned not to lose the advantages that have accrued over the process. I think that is a huge asset for us in the time ahead. The problem is that it is not clear that the degrees of will and interest that exist and will continue to exist on the part of the Irish Government are understood or appreciated by the British Government or by some of the parties in the North.

The best opportunity to bring this reality to the situation is to say that some European funds could continue to flow on the island of Ireland on a cross-Border basis, with the North enjoying something of a lean-to status, in operational terms, with the South. That is what many of us want to see when we talk about special status. It relates to Single Market and customs arrangements as well. It is a question of allowing the North to have this sort of status. Other people have touched on this aspect of the matter in their commentary on the immigration question. It has been suggested that these matters should be considered in the context of the island of Ireland, rather than focusing on the divide within the island.

As Mr. Ó Ceallaigh has said, the question of being able to identify and dispense European funding will need to be addressed in the negotiations. We cannot assume it will be taken care of afterwards. If there is anything we can take out of this week's Supreme Court ruling, it is that one cannot rely on the political understanding one has unless one builds it into legislation and actual negotiated treaties. That is the signal warning that comes from the Supreme Court ruling. We have to address these issues now in the context of the wider negotiations.

I would like to speak about the possibility of making specific provision in any new UK-EU treaty for the Good Friday Agreement in respect of the constitutional question. If we ensure that in the event of a referendum on unity, there is no question mark over Northern Ireland's immediate access as part of a united Ireland to the EU, we could prevent the sorts of questions that arose in Scotland from being used to create an external impediment to the democratic potential for unity. If the North had such a differentiated status in a UK-EU treaty, that could create the ambit for the North being able to avail of access to EU funding that would probably come via the Irish Government and the strand 2 mechanisms of the Agreement, rather than coming through the UK in the previous way.

If this possible means of securing EU funds were provided for, it is likely that the question of matching funding would arise. Perhaps this could be considered in the negotiations that should happen between the British and Irish Governments. I take the point that some people have made about the supposed rubric that there cannot be bilateral negotiations. The Good Friday Agreement provides for a British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference on sovereign matters. I do not see why it cannot be used in this context to deal with some of these issues.