Mr. Brian Gormally:

It is not a question that they would necessarily have to do so in order to access rights but it is certainly a way in which existing rights could be maintained. I find it difficult to envisage that many people in the North would want to go down the route of asking the Home Office whether they have the right to remain in the land of their birth. In principle, however, that is the case. We do not know yet and we asked a junior Northern Ireland Office Minister whether the Home Office would accept such an application from somebody born in Northern Ireland. He said he did not know and would get back to us in writing. That was a few weeks back, before Christmas, and we have not yet received his response. We do not know what line the Home Office would take.

The point of this is not in a sense to get into the complexities of nationality and citizenship law but to demonstrate how Brexit has exposed the lack of a proper legal underpinning to the Good Friday Agreement.