Mr. Eoin O'Neill:

I wish to pick up on some of the questions. I thank Deputy Seán Barrett for his kind words and offer of support. We will take any support we can get. We take it from all quarters and we receive significant support throughout the full spectrum.

Deputy Crowe asked us to put our position clearly on the table. The British Irish Chamber of Commerce advocated strongly for a remain agenda throughout the campaign. We campaigned in the UK for a remain agenda. We tried to mobilise the voice of business, which was a difficult voice to mobilise in the UK in the course of the campaign. We were ardent supporters of a remain agenda because we did not see any positive future in the UK exiting, either for the UK or for the rest of Europe. I wish to make that point in case there is any ambiguity. That was strongly our view.

Our absolute understanding is like the understanding of everyone else. We understand the border agenda is as defined in articles 49 and 50 of the joint report, that is to say, that there will be an open border relationship North and South. However, as that infamous week went on, we went from having 49 articles to 50 articles following an intervention from the North. We moved to not having an east-west border either, because there was some sub-text of a border going down the middle of the Irish Sea. Last week I met a delegation of members from the Scottish Parliament. They were equally concerned about what a border down the middle of the Irish Sea might look like given the question of where it would leave Scotland.

As we start to peel the onion, we get different layers evolving in all aspects of it. I absolutely understand the concerns expressed about a gateway concept and Ireland. It is a result of a vote we did not have. The result was foisted upon us and has resulted in us becoming a gateway to Europe. That will put an extraordinary and onerous responsibility on the Irish sovereign State to protect and manage its borders as an entry point into the European entity. I do not think that has been addressed but it needs to be addressed in far more detail in the context of the argument on where we might go.

We have tried to call out strongly where we believe the decision of the sovereign vote in the UK has led. We respect the vote of the UK. We could parcel it and say that Scotland voted to stay, Wales voted to leave and Northern Ireland voted to stay. The city of London voted to stay. We could start to parcel it but at the end of the day the sovereign entity voted to leave Europe and we have to respect the vote of the people. The British Irish Chamber of Commerce is a democratically-driven organisation and we respect that vote.

We cannot start to parcel down elements of it, much and all as we might like to. Against that backdrop, what we have tried to do in our Big Principles document is present a palatable way forward for that electorate to make the best of a difficult situation.

I did not really address it earlier when Deputy O'Sullivan asked me where we could find some positives and opportunities in this. Let us be absolutely clear that there are no positives. There are positives in what we have today, which has been positive for us for many years on this island, but there are no positives in this going forward. The best we can hope for is a nil-sum game which is difficult and challenging in its own respect. We are not blind to the issues and we absolutely respect that.

I will allow Ms Daughen to speak on some of the cases of the Court of Justice of the European Union. There is a lot of technical stuff in it.