Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join in welcoming the ambassador and we appreciate him coming here. He has had a slightly lively first six months in his posting but the engagement we have had with him and his team at the embassy has been very positive up to now. I will touch on three areas alluded to in the statement but which perhaps did not get much detail in the address. I would appreciate it if the ambassador could expand a little on them.

The first relates to future bilateral ties. In the context of Brexit, the Irish Government is limited and will have to negotiate as part of the bloc of the remaining 27 EU member states. That is widely accepted. However, we are fortunate we have excellent alternative bilateral institutions already in place, such as the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly and council. I said to the ambassador's counterpart in Irish Government circles that there is a major role for these institutions post-Brexit and we could really see the British-Irish Council increase its workload from two summits per year to 12. That would replace the amount of ministerial contact that Ministers have at a European Council level. What are the thoughts of the witness in that respect?

I will probably be the only person to raise the future of the Commonwealth but I will do it anyway. How important is that institution to the UK with respect to possible economic and social ties? A third issue is one about which I am very concerned, and this is shared by many people. It has dominated the media in the UK up to the past couple of days, when Gibraltar seems to have taken over for whatever reason. It is the so-called Brexit bill. I have been back and forth to Brussels, as have my colleagues, so many times and we have had really good engagements, as the ambassador mentioned, with counterparts from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. I am worried there is an obsession about what has been called a Brexit bill or divorce payment. This relates to agreements entered into in good faith that are binding until 2020 and which deliver a return. Is there a chance the British Government might be prepared to park this obsession with a so-called amount that elements in the Houses of Parliament and more particularly in the media in the UK have focused on? That would allow tangible negotiations on really important matters to take place in the first two years. We should not allow all negotiations to fall apart because of people becoming obsessed with a figure of 60 billion, whether it is in sterling or euro. The numbers are bouncing about and will ultimately be paid but they are not the big issue. What is more important is what happens in the next 50 years.