Mr. Brian Gormally:

The point is that Brexit has peeled away and shown the lack of proper legislative and constitutional underpinning of the Good Friday Agreement as Professor Harvey has just been saying. An Irish citizen does not by virtue of his or her Irish citizenship have the right to live and reside in Northern Ireland under UK law. That is what needs to be changed. The UK needs to legislate and very likely the Irish Government also needs to legislate; what we would argue is that should be given international legal effect by a treaty. That is what is necessary to underpin the Good Friday Agreement. It has taken two and a half years of debate for the realisation to become clear that there is not the same legal underpinning of the rights of Irish citizens as there are of British citizens in terms of the rights within the territory of Northern Ireland. These may seem abstruse legal technicalities but as the Senator's impassioned points have demonstrated this actually goes to the heart of identity. It goes to the heart of what the Good Friday Agreement was supposed to do and where it has not been fully implemented, and demonstrates the danger of Brexit to the Agreement.