Ms Martina Anderson:

I appreciate the opportunity to address the committee today. I sit on three EU Parliament committees; the constitutional affairs committee, the civil liberties committee and the regional development committee. Each committee deals primarily with the Brexit files, as do other committees. All of us have read, line by line the joint report of 8 December. The European Parliament, the Commission and the Council have stated that the commitments given had to be faithfully and fully implemented and brought into legal texts. This legal text is currently being worked on. Sinn Féin had advocated caution on the 8 December because we did not accept the assessment given to us that these were cast iron guarantees. What has played out this week is proof positive that they were not cast iron guarantees. We advocated caution because nobody knows better than us the British in the context of negotiations. We know how duplicitous they can be and we know they will roll back from negotiation. Once one decides and declares a bottom line, the next stage for the British is to negotiate downwards. Some of the reports we have heard from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and today clearly shows that this is exactly what is happening.

Without a doubt it is fundamentally better that we do not have any barriers North-South or east-west. There is nothing wrong with trying to explore all that but because Theresa May is always questioned on this, she has repeatedly and categorically said that the entire territory is leaving the Single Market and the customs union. If this is the case then we have to ensure the draft treaty, which is currently being worked on, incudes binding terms, called the back-stop option No. 3. For example, if there is no agreement, then we would have a situation of full alignment in the North. Some people make reference to the full alignment only in the context of North South co-operation but as the committee will be aware, having read the text, it includes North-South co-operation, the all-island economy and protecting the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts, which is crucially important.

Today and yesterday we have heard reports that contingency planning is taking place in the State for a hard border. A report came out yesterday or today around the Dublin docklands and its terminal in the context of planning for border controls. Ms McGuinness referred to the Copenhagen report and the damage that it has outlined for the State and how growth will be affected, going down by 7%. We are also aware that the UK's Department for Exiting the European Union has produced a report.

Mr. Chris Hazzard is a Member of Parliament. Every MP has to go into a locked room without a phone, a pen or a pencil to see the report. He is in it today to examine the details of that report as the British Government does not want that report out there. We have heard information that it will result in a 12% drop in gross domestic product, GDP, for the North and we know 10% of the North's GDP comes from European funding. We can see that 54 weeks into the process, there is infighting in the British Cabinet. Mr. Boris Johnson is trying today to give some measure of assurance for those of us who voted to remain but he is certainly not speaking to the people of Ireland, never mind the people of the North. We know from Mr. Barnier's comments in Europe that there is a chaotic Brexit negotiation taking place.

The European Union and the British Government knows this and I am inclined to agree with Ms McGuinness's assessment of the British Government's efforts around Brexit. It has not left any country without leaving it in a mess. This will come to the cliff-edge scenario and it will go over a cliff. Britain will try to create as much damage as it can, particularly for the people of Ireland, including those North, South, east and west. Mr. Barnier, Commissioner Hogan and others have said that if we are out of the customs union and Single Market in the North, there will be barriers, friction and borders. That is something that the contingency planning taking place needs to apply for the island in the context of the Good Friday Agreement. The only way to secure that is a process, whether it is what is known as designated special status for the North to remain in the EU, or as An Taoiseach called it when he was in Strasbourg, special arrangements for the North to remain in the EU. Whatever one calls it is irrelevant so long as the ingredients are the same. That means there must be a role for the European Court of Justice. There has been much talk of trade, barriers and all that is important.

I was thinking today and I remind everyone that I was born into a gerrymandered state 50 years ago. Only this week we have had a report from the British Government that it intends to reintroduce gerrymandering in the North. We can see that in the context of the Westminster elections and the report that has come from that. Esteemed academics like Professor McCrudden, Mr. Liam Herrick of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and Mr. Colm Harvey have said that rights are only genuine if they are reinforced. In this State there was the opportunity to hear from a senior judge in the European Court of Justice only last week, Mr. Anthony Collins. He spoke of the first right that will be lost for the people of the North, the right to representative democracy and the right to be represented in the European Parliament. The voice of the people of the North will be lost. He said it is not just unsatisfactory but it is illegal. Paragraph 53 of the joint report agreed in December indicates there were cast-iron guarantees, and it states the rights, entitlements, identity and the opportunity of the people of the North would not be lost as a consequence of the Article 50 agreement. We must be able to exercise those rights.

Whatever about the seats being allocated - I welcome two have been allocated to this State - this is about the entitlement of the people of Ireland. Three additional seats should be allocated to the people in the North of Ireland. The only way to secure that is the Irish Government in Council ensuring there is a greater allocation of the seats. The 14 seats mean a seat is lost to Ireland as an island. As we all know, the Irish Government is a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, so what it has said to the people about cast-iron guarantees must be implemented in this phase and before negotiations are allowed into the second phase. As the European Parliament and Council indicates, these must be fully and faithfully implemented. We hope this committee will ensure the commitments given in the joint report of December 8 will be followed through so the island, North and South, east and west, can be protected from the chaos and madness that Brexit will bring to this entire Ireland, whether one is from Derry or Kerry. We will all be damaged by it unless we come together and ensure the island can be protected.