Ms Ruth Taillon:

I thank the committee for the invitation to come here today. We submitted a paper as well, but it was submitted in March and as the committee will be well aware, things have moved on quite a lot, certainly in terms of the Brexit debate. There have been some reassurances, but also possibly a change in tone in some of the discussion around Brexit which might undermine these reassurances. We have a number of concerns. The centre has worked on issues around the Border for many years now. We also have an all-island agenda, but certainly in terms of the Border region and Border counties, we have done quite a lot of work on the Border development quarter concept, for instance, and working with groups. Most of our work on cross-Border co-operation has for many years now been framed, both within the imperative for co-operation that is in the Good Friday Agreement, but also EU cohesion policy. One of our big concerns now with the UK withdrawal from the EU is that there is going to be a policy divergence. We are be very concerned, for instance, that the cross-Border bodies working to a common regulatory remit, such as Waterways Ireland and Safefood, will be undermined by Brexit. We could, for instance, start losing some of these environmental protections or whatever, perhaps not immediately but certainly over a fairly short period of time. We also concur with the comments made by Co-operation Ireland about human rights. We have very much welcomed the civic dialogue. Another concern I will flag before passing on to my colleagues is the importance of maintaining the kinds of relationships which were broken by the Troubles and the Border, but which programmes like PEACE I and PEACE II and the INTERREG programmes were very much geared at rebuilding. We need some kind of replacement for those programmes and priority to be given to that. There have been huge demographic changes on the island, North and South, since the common travel area was brought in, which only applies at present to UK and Irish citizens. The priority is not just on what the Border is going to look like, but on the rights of both UK and EU citizens already on the island. These really need to be preserved, because the social cohesion aspect of the peace process is something that should concern all of us on the island. The changes and the poverty issues discussed by Ms McKay are certainly the kind of things that could lead to a further breakdown of community relations on both sides of the Border region. Those things are very much tied into economic and social development as well, so they are concerns. I will pass on to my colleague, the deputy director of the Centre for Cross-Border Studies, Dr. Anthony Soares.