Mr. Jimmy Martin:

I will pick up on the questions around Protocols No. 19 and 20 of the Schengen Agreement and the common travel area. I hope Members will forgive me for being slightly long-winded, but it is best to explain it from an historical perspective. First of all, before I start on that, the question about what the position of Irish people will be in the UK post-Brexit is really a question for the British to decide. They have said that they want to maintain the common travel area and, by implication, maintain all the rights, but it is purely a decision for the UK. It is not necessarily part of the negotiations. There are negotiations about reciprocal rights. If one looks at Ireland in 1922, the common travel area meant Irish people could go to Britain.

There was free travel and the right to work. When we joined the European Union in 1973, that gave us certain rights to free movement. It meant that we could move to France to look for a job under certain specific conditions. It did not provide for free movement in the sense that border controls remained in place between Ireland and France and between France and Germany. There was no free movement, even though there were certain rights such as a right to work and things like that, but one could not just cross a border. It was only following the signing of the Lisbon treaty that the Schengen area idea was introduced. In one context, it removed border controls. After the introduction of the Schengen area, a person living in France could cross into Germany without border controls. In a sense, it is mirrored in the common travel area. There are no border controls between Ireland and the United Kingdom and we have the right to work there. The EU arrangements mirror that system. When the provision was included in the Treaty of Lisbon, there was a question for Ireland and the United Kingdom to decide, namely, did they want to, in effect, abandon the common travel area and join the Schengen area? A decision was made at that stage not to join. Protocols 19 and 20 stated Ireland and Britain could stay outside the Schengen area and have their own border controls. The Schengen area and the common travel area are very similar in terms of the arrangements applied. When we travel to France, we have to show our passports because we are entering the Schengen area, but once we are in France, we can move between Schengen area countries. When a French person travels to Ireland or Britain, he or she has to show a passport, despite having a right of entry. Our legal staff have examined Protocols 19 and 20 and their advice to us has been that they stand. Even though the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union, Ireland still has a right to have border controls separate from the Schengen agreement. No view from Brussels has stated that this is not correct. If that continues to be the case, we can decide to have whatever border controls we want. People living elsewhere in the European Union will still have a right to travel here, but we will have a right to check their passports. It is to be hoped that position can be maintained. As Mr. Waters said, we cannot be in the Schengen area and the common travel area because there has to be a border between the two. Ireland is in the common travel area and the European Union, which means that we have reciprocal rights. People from Ireland and the United Kingdom have rights in the common travel area and the European Union. The problem will arise when the United Kingdom leaves the European Union. The rights of Irish people living in the United Kingdom will be the rights we have in the common travel area but in not the European Union. The rights of people from the United Kingdom who are living in Ireland will depend on what rights they will have in the common travel area rather than in the European Union. Citizens of the European Union will retain exactly the same rights in Ireland as they have now. Logic feeds from that which is connected to all other questions. The view is that Protocols 19 and 20 mean that Ireland can remain outside the Schengen area and retain border controls. That would mean that there could be no border controls with the United Kingdom. That would not cause any problem for Schengen area countries. Given that Ireland is outside the Schengen area, it would not be a back door. The countries in the Schengen area could have border controls for us.