Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will quickly make a couple of points because I must leave to attend another meeting. I will follow up on the responses at a later stage.

Every time I hear the term "hard border" I feel compelled to challenge it. There was never a hard border on the island of Ireland and there will not be following Brexit, regardless of what form it will take. We had a highly militarised Border, where road crossings were controlled and difficult to get through, but, as has been pointed out, wildlife has never recognised the Border and never had any problem in passing from one part of the island to the other. It is something that really bothers me because we keep talking about a hard border. When we meet colleagues from Hungary and Poland, they understand what a hard border is because they look at one every day of their lives. It is important that we put the matter in context.

A very good point has been made, that, to date at least, the Good Friday Agreement has not been exploited from the point of view of Brexit. We could engage in bilateral conversations on the future of the island through the mechanism available under the Good Friday Agreement, but it strikes me that we have got bogged down in the Barnier negotiations, which I fully support. It is stated there will be a backstop and that when the problem is solved, we will speak about everything else. The more we look at what is coming from the United Kingdom the more it seems there will be no agreement on 31 October if Mr. Johnson or the other guy makes it. As far as they are concerned, the United Kingdom will be out of the European Union and the Irish problem can be sorted out when it leaves. That brings into the question some of the areas mentioned, including regulation. If the United Kingdom has its way, we will be dealing with a third country. This means that it can diverge in regulation. We must remember we are no longer in charge of regulation. Ireland will be part of a collective of 27 countries and the regulations may quickly diverge between the two jurisdictions. That would cause a major problem for us, unless we were to find a mechanism through the Good Friday Agreement to have negotiations with the European Union and the authorities in London and Belfast to reach agreement.

It seems that the Government is quite happy to continue to fund what is happening in the North of Ireland, but I am not so sure the same would be true at Westminster in the event that there is a hard break from the European Union.

The other one is environmental policy. In the event of a hard Brexit, as opposed to a hard border, the British would start disassembling as much as they possibly can of European regulation to meet their own needs. Is that something the delegates have taken time to consider in their own approach - that they might for economic or other reasons decide that the European regulations are too restrictive and they would start releasing? There was talk about fox hunting in England earlier. It is not terribly long ago since people said, "Hang them high", if they wanted to chase foxes. One can see that it would not take a whole lot to move them. I will leave it at that. I thank the delegates for taking the time to come before us. When I saw the agenda was on Brexit and the environment I wondered what it was all about, but the witnesses bring home the real problem of Brexit, which is that it will infiltrate every aspect of life on this island in both jurisdictions. I compliment them on doing that. It is a great day's work by both of them.