Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is a great privilege to attend the first meeting of our select committee on Brexit. It is a very important committee because Brexit is an issue for many people. In the part of Ireland that I come from there are 30,000 journeys across the Border on a daily basis for work, social and education reasons so it is of huge significance there. It is a great privilege to be at this committee and it shows the Seanad being highly relevant to the people outside of it. I wish the Chairman well in the deliberations and congratulate him on his selection as Chairman. I wish him well in co-ordinating our discussions and ensuring they hit the spot to the extent that they become part of the negotiations and input them directly.

I thank Mr. Waters and the other guests for their appearance before the committee today and I will put a number of specific questions to them. Does Mr. Waters anticipate negotiations between Ireland and the UK on the matters discussed which will be separate to the overall negotiations between Mr. Barnier and his team and the UK Government? Will we be facilitated as a subset of the overall negotiations with separate negotiations to deal with these issues and the common travel area specifically? It merits mentioning, in the context of Mr. Waters presentation, that the relationship between the UK and Ireland is at an all-time high and has been excellent in recent years. It would be a great pity for the outcome of these negotiations to jeopardise that because of the historic kinship, the fact that there are so many people of Irish extraction in the UK and the ties, bonds, trading and relationships. We have to be vigilant to achieve that and also to achieve our domestic interests.

It is interesting that Mr. Waters said each side in the common travel area should now adopt the same attitude to third parties, that is, when non-EU nationals try to come into either jurisdiction that the same rules would apply. Could he comment a little more on how that might play out in a situation where the UK in a post-EU membership scenario - we still cling to the hope that might not arise but, unfortunately, it looks like it will - would adopt a different immigration policy and that as part of the EU we would have the EU's immigration policy, and free movement for citizens of member states? Does Mr. Waters see an obstacle there and how does he think it could be overcome? I would like to be reassured by him that we can maintain the common travel area and yet operate those two different policies should that divergence arise. It would seem that is the raison d'êtrefor Brexit in the first instance, and that it would apply to tourist visas to which he referred. I ask Mr. Waters to address those issues.

I was at a committee meeting on the Irish language recently, coiste na Gaeilge. One would assume that Brexit could not greatly impact there, but there was a presentation on how Brexit could impact on the Irish language community and it was pointed out that 9,000 students from Northern Ireland go to Gaeltachts in Donegal every year and that many other students transfer between the North and South in various colleges, for example, in Monaghan and Enniskillen, and to various university courses. That was just a practical day-to-day reality that would not have occurred to me had I not been at the meeting. Brexit has significant implications for ordinary life on a day-to-day basis. The discussion is highly relevant and very serious and I look forward to the responses from Mr. Waters on those issues. He might come back later on if issues arise.