Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the three speakers for their contributions this morning. I differ from some here in that I believe the common travel area is almost certain to survive completely unchanged by the Brexit process. While I agree that we have to look at the worst-case scenario in respect of North-South and east-west transport and movement of people, I do not believe there will be immigration checks on the Border or across the Irish Sea. The Government of the United Kingdom will continue to have visa-free access for EU citizens, which will include Irish citizens. The common travel area will be made the subject of a special carve out. As such, I am slightly more relaxed than others here on that subject.

In respect of Mr. Kennedy's airline analysis, he is absolutely right to signal to us the consequences of a hard Brexit were Article 50 to mean the United Kingdom was leaving the European Union after two calendar years. However, we must remember that Article 50 provides that the actual departure date from the United Kingdom can be altered by an agreement negotiated within that time. I emphasise strongly that while Ireland would be especially affected by the collapse or evaporation of the European and US-EU air transport arrangements, I do not believe others are blind to that. As such, transitional arrangements will be negotiated on a front-loaded basis to preserve the air travel market which, as Mr. Kennedy says, is so important.

On the regulation of public transport, bus services probably constitute an issue. I do not predict that there will be a problem with rail services as long as the absence of INTERREG funding does not cause a major disruption to plans to expand the Enterprise service. However, there are serious implications for bus transport of having two jurisdictions not operating at least a co-ordinated system as happens within the EU. I would be very interested to hear whether negotiations, or at least discussions, have taken place North-South on an all-Ireland approach to this matter. Under the Good Friday Agreement, these are the kinds of things that can be dealt with by cross-Border institutions. Given that everyone is agreed that the Good Friday Agreement is going to continue, I see no reason we should not at least explore using cross-Border institutions, existing or new, to deal with these kinds of issues.