Professor Gary Murphy:

Chairman, I agree with everything you said about the catastrophe a hard Border would be for the thousands of people living in the Border region, as well as for the rest of the State. I was anxious to portray in my statement why we should strive, might and main, to avoid such a thing. When I was preparing my statement, I was conscious of putting stress on the importance of bilateral relations with the United Kingdom, which relates to Deputy Darragh O'Brien's question. Of course, the British do not know what they want. Unlike ourselves, they have very little experience of running referendums. We have re-run referendums relating to the European Union on the Lisbon and Nice treaties. The British clearly do not know what they want. The chances of a re-run of the referendum are zero. It was clearly overwrought and emotional last June, and it would be much worse in a re-run.

The little England mentality comes much more strongly to the fore in terms of going against the will of the people. That is an extremely difficult issue.

I will deal with two other issues. To respond to Senator Bacik, I had been concerned for some time about the development of the European Union along a two-tier process. We will hear from Mr. Barnier today when he addresses the House but I describe myself as ardently pro-European. I am here as a neutral commentator but sometimes it is no harm if we put our cards on the table. The European Union has been extremely good for this country. In many ways it has transformed the Irish State. It transformed education, to allude to what Senator Bacik and Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan raised. It was announced in The Guardianyesterday that 171 of our colleagues in the University of Manchester, for instance, are at risk of being fired. Aberystwyth University is firing staff or looking to let staff go. In many ways all of that is to do with Brexit, which goes to the point that I do not believe the British knew what they were doing in the first place. That is not to criticise them for making the decision but it goes to the point about the two-speed Europe. As we know, there are critics of the European Union in regard to the troika and the bailout. I tend to be of the view that some of that is ideological in nature but overall, I suggest that the European Union has been good for us. I am keen to stress, however, that we must make use of our bilateral negotiations with the British to state to them that the negotiations they are engaging in with the Union have to be nuanced as distinct from going in, as Professor Barrett said, and saying that no deal is better than any deal, which I believe would be catastrophic.