Professor Colin Harvey:

It is clear in the emerging discussion that there are a number of specific issues around citizenship, nationality and immigration law as well that require change, in the British and Irish context, in regard to realising both the Good Friday Agreement obligations and also the discussion around the common travel area, CTA. We need clarification as to the conversations that are happening now. If there are discussions on some of those issues, we need more clarification around that in terms of what is happening, what has been agreed or if anything has been agreed. Last week in a Cabinet discussion there was some reference to a treaty and a memorandum of understanding that were ready to go regarding the CTA provisions. If work is being done, we might need to do more about that. There is probably an appropriate time for that to be shared but we need to hear that.

Short of that, somebody needs to be thinking in concrete terms about what needs to change in domestic law in both a UK and Irish context to remedy some of the issues we are talking about now. If that work has not been done, it needs to be done. That is the reference my colleagues made to paragraph 52 on special arrangements. Many of us felt there was a sense that hard work on all of this was ongoing, that all of it was being thought through and much of it was being resolved. If that is not happening, then that was the context for the call for a review in both the British and Irish context to urgently address how this will be remedied.