Mr. Noel Waters:

I thank the Senators. I will revert to Senator Boyhan first. I acknowledge the Senator's points on the question of having a separate visa within the common travel area post-Brexit to enable us to function as we are at the moment. In reality, when it comes to non-EU nationals, such as the Chinese people I referred to in my opening remarks, the British-Irish visa scheme is essentially a separate visa which enables them to come to London, to travel across the Irish Sea, to visit the Guinness Storehouse, to go to Killarney or Kilkenny or the Cliffs of Moher, and when they are done to go to the Titanic Centre in Belfast and then back down to Dublin completely seamlessly. The co-operation we have with the UK has enabled this to happen. That mirrors to a large extent what happens in Schengen.

As I understand it, when people apply for a Schengen visa, and we are not in Schengen now, they may a apply for a visa in Riga and may travel from Riga in northern Europe, up on the Baltic coast, right down to the southern Mediterranean on the same visa. What we do with the UK in respect of the British-Irish visa effectively mirrors that. Clearly it is in our national interest, and it is a public policy prerogative for us, to retain that. We want to keep that. That is really important because that is generating genuine business in this country. It is important for tourism, for business and for ease of travel. We want to retain that and we anticipate that we should, because it relates to non-EU nationals or third-country nationals.

The challenge for us then relates to EU nationals, the people who come from the other member states into Ireland. Clearly we are not going to interfere in any way with their rights of free movement, whether into Ireland, Spain, the UK or any other country. We are not, in any way, going to interfere with that. For us to even attempt to go there would clearly call into question our commitment as EU members and that is simply not going to happen. We are committed, completely and totally, to respecting the free movement rights of EU nationals.

Picking up on Senator Mark Daly's point, there is no question of UK officials acting as border agents in Ireland. That, again, is simply not on. There was some comment about that in the immediate aftermath of Brexit. Perhaps that comment was a little bit misinformed because we are not going to exercise a border control function for EU nationals on behalf of the UK. We do, to all intents and purposes, exercise that function in respect of non-EU nationals. The benefit of that, as I spoke about, is having a common visa to enable people to come into Ireland, to travel to the UK and the North and to move around the area without let or hindrance. Our intention is that would remain. I think that deals with Senator Boyhan's point if I understand it.

To address Senator Daly's comments on the hard Brexit, the Senator painted what I would call a dystopian scenario. There are not two ways of putting it. A situation where there was a completely hard Brexit, everything was off the table and the common travel area was gone would be very bleak. Major issues would immediately arise for the freedom of movement and the freedom to reside, work, educate and live on the island, North and South, not to speak of people being able to travel, as we have all our lives, to the UK and remain as long as we like. That would be an entirely bleak situation for Ireland in terms of our economic activity and ability to trade.

The Government is working as best it can to avoid that happening, hence, as I said at the outset, we have made our case very strongly to the European Commission to retain the particular arrangements we have in respect of the common travel area. We can only wait to see how that actually works out. I think that picks up a point by the Senator's colleague, Senator Paul Daly. There is no sugar coating this in terms of the scenario the Senator has painted. It would be a very difficult situation for our country if we found ourselves in the position of having to reintroduce border controls on the Border. We would have to re-introduce border controls at all our ports of entry because we would effectively be the border for the EU. The UK would be a third country. We would be enforcing the border for everybody with no regard to our own particular arrangements in the common travel area.

That actually speaks to another related point. Before Brexit, the question was often raised as to why do we not just leave the common travel area or why can we not be in Schengen and the common travel area. The simple answer is that we cannot be in both. It is actually to our advantage. It is an arguable point, and obviously a call made by Governments over the years, whether it was more beneficial to Ireland to be in Schengen or to be in the common travel area. The debate has gone on post-Brexit and the argument is essentially says that it is in our national interest to be in the common travel area. The fact that we are not in Schengen is actually helpful in the context of the arguments that we are making to the Commission about the special nature of the arrangement between ourselves and the UK, not to speak of the peace process and the fact that so many people in the North, one million people, are entitled to Irish passports. All of those issues together make the argument, very strongly, for where we want to be. Again, the situation the Senator has raised would be very bleak.

There is another point which I am glad Senator Daly has brought out. It is in terms of how we actually operate at the moment. Not a lot of people know about the amount of information that travels back and forward between our respective jurisdictions and which helps to make us all safer. We have advanced passenger information, API. I might ask my colleague, Mr William O'Dwyer, to talk about that in a moment. This is information shared by airlines with the immigration authorities, back and forward across the Irish Sea. This is an important reassurance for everybody to know who is coming into our jurisdictions. I think people need not have concerns around that because there are no issues, that information is destroyed instantly. There are not large banks of data being kept and collated for any other nefarious purpose. Perhaps my colleague, Mr. James Martin, might come in on this as well. There is a passenger name records directive coming into play in May of next year. We are obliged to sign up to it. This again will require all the authorities, both in Europe and outside of it, to share information about people who are travelling between jurisdictions.

Perhaps Mr. O'Dwyer will now come in on the matter of API.