Mr. Michael Farrell:

If the common travel area is retained, as I hope it will be, residents of the Republic could use similar identification documents. If there is opposition to this by any interests in the EU, it could be pointed out that the situation in Northern Ireland is both unique and somewhat fragile. It is unique in that the UK Government acknowledges the right of residents there to be citizens of another state which is an EU member, that very many residents are Irish citizens and that almost all are entitled to be Irish citizens, and therefore EU citizens, if they so choose. There are examples of other situations where the EU has been able to accommodate special relationships with regions or territories of member states such as the Isle of Man, Gibraltar and the large British bases in Cyprus, which all have some sort of connection with the EU but are not part of it. Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which are part of the state of Denmark, are not part of the EU so the EU can deal with unusual situations. There are many small countries on the fringes of the EU with which the EU has free trade agreements even though these countries are not in the EU. In the British White Paper, I read that Gibraltar is not part of the Single Market but is governed by EU law, which is quite relevant to the question of EU law continuing to pertain in Northern Ireland. I am sure the Government is telling the EU that the EU has committed a great deal in money and resources to supporting the peace process in Northern Ireland over many years and it would be inconsistent with previous policy to now take actions that might undermine or weaken that process.

There is also one very specific aspect of the entitlement to Irish citizenship that I would like to address. Under the Good Friday Agreement and the relevant Irish legislation, children born in Northern Ireland who have at least one parent who is an Irish or British citizen or has permanent residency are entitled to become Irish citizens. However, parents of such children who are living in Northern Ireland are not entitled to become Irish citizens by naturalisation, although they may be entitled to UK citizenship. This has resulted in a situation where there are families where the children are Irish and EU citizens but the parent or parents are not. In an extreme situation, it could lead to the parent being deported while the children are allowed to stay in Northern Ireland. In the current situation of uncertainty about the future status of EU citizens and third country nationals living in the UK, there is anxiety and concern among the small but important ethnic minority community in Northern Ireland about their position after Brexit and some of them, who have lived there for long periods, would like to apply for Irish citizenship. If they lived in the Republic, they would be entitled to apply for naturalisation after five years but their residence in Northern Ireland is not reckonable. Almost all other parts of the legislation dealing with citizenship talks about birth or residence on the island of Ireland but this one area talks about birth or residence within the State. This could be resolved fairly simply by allowing residence in Northern Ireland to become reckonable in the same way as residence in the Republic. This could be done administratively or by amending the Act and it would be of considerable value to the ethnic minority community in Northern Ireland and win a good deal of goodwill from it.

My fellow speakers this afternoon will deal in more detail with human rights provisions but I would like to mention that membership of the EU brings with it two very important guarantees of human rights protection. It is a condition of EU membership that all member states must adhere to the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR, and all member states are now bound by the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which has the status of the founding treaties of the EU. There is also a commitment in the Good Friday Agreement that the ECHR would be incorporated into domestic law in Northern Ireland. The British Conservative Government has pledged to repeal the Human Rights Act by which the ECHR was brought into domestic law in Northern Ireland. Everybody living in Northern Ireland is currently protected by these two very powerful instruments - in the case of the ECHR through the medium of the Human Rights Act while the Charter of Fundamental Rights has direct effect as EU legislation. These two instruments also have the important characteristic that the ultimate court of appeal in each case is a court made up of judges from all the member states.

In Northern Ireland, that has been an additional confidence-building factor where, in the past, there was not always confidence in the impartiality of the Judiciary. I believe the Judiciary in Northern Ireland has demonstrated its impartiality but still there may be people who doubt that and the appeal to an external court is very important.

The UK Government has committed to repealing the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a British bill of rights, which many fear would weaken its effect in certain areas. Sections of the Conservative Party want to withdraw from the convention entirely. That has been deferred for the moment because of Brexit but the current Government has said that, as part of Brexit, it would withdraw from the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

European Union law, reinforced recently by the charter, has been the source of much progressive legislation on equality issues in Northern Ireland and there are concerns that withdrawal from the charter and the EU would undermine those gains. As Professor Harvey has stressed, protection of human rights has been a fundamental part of the Good Friday Agreement. I would suggest that the Irish Government should press for a commitment that there should be no regression from the level of human rights protections that currently obtain in Northern Ireland and that the UK Government should give an undertaking that the Human Rights Act and the European convention should continue to apply there, whatever about the rest of the UK, and that Northern Ireland should continue to be bound by the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Ironically, the Good Friday Agreement contained a commitment to equivalence of human rights protection in both the Republic and Northern Ireland. That was originally aimed at requiring the Republic to incorporate the European convention into domestic law as it had been in the North but the same principle should apply now to Northern Ireland in order that its residents should retain the protection of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which will continue to apply in the Republic since the Republic is an EU member.