Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming here. It was a very sombre presentation. Has ETBI done costings for a worst case scenario where Irish students were no longer able to go over to Britain? In a worst case scenario where there is a hard Brexit, the impact it might have on the Irish system is frightening. If Irish students were not able to go to England or to the North and there was no transition and they had to pay full international fees which would mean they could not go to college in England, the points would increase in Ireland as a result because of increased demand. The same with the North. What would the Irish system have to do in order to meet that capacity if, in March 2019, there is no transitional agreement? It is not feasible in two years or less. It will not be good anyway. Along the line, there will be some increase in fees for EU students who want to go to the UK. Then there is the impact of the North-South issue on that. This is also a question for Mr. Garrahy - are there comparisons between EU and non-EU countries, EEA countries such as Norway and Switzerland? Northern Cyprus has an access to EU programmes. It is our best case scenario because they are all treated as EU member states, as citizens of the European Union. They are not living in the European Union, they are outside it but it is as close as we have got to a precedent. Is there precedent that we can draw on there that would assist in this, that those who were EU citizens in Northern Ireland would be able to continue to access Erasmus? The same applies to the ETBI, is there something in the current educational model in Cyprus on the border that we can draw on and point out to the European Union so we can say that it is already doing it for Cyprus, so it would not be a huge leap to do it for us? The effect it will have on Irish colleges and the lack of access for Irish students going to colleges where we do not have the capacity already is frightening. Have we any broad figures on that?

On the impact on workers, we know that workers' rights in Ireland would not be what they are if it was not for the European Union bringing them forward and imposing them on the Irish State in many cases which was lagging so far behind on workers' rights. What can this committee include in its final report regarding Northern Ireland to protect the rights of European workers? We have had a proposal that even if Britain leaves and has an agreement between itself and the EU, that Northern Ireland would be treated as a special case as an EEA area. That draws on the precedent of East Germany before the wall came down, when it had direct trade links with West Germany. It was effectively treated as a member of the European Community even though there was no formal structure around that. We are trying to point to all these other precedents that would allow us to make the case for workers in Northern Ireland and for trade unions being able to appeal to European courts even if they may not do it in England or Scotland. That is what we are hoping to do and we would welcome any assistance or want to hear anything that the witnesses wish us to include in our recommendations. We have been told by the EU, by Michel Barnier and others, that no matter how left field an idea is, they would like to hear it because no one has been here before and we need to give them solutions. If we do not give them solutions they will not come up with them for us. We have to come up with solutions for them.