Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A considerable number of issues have been addressed, particularly migration and asylum. I welcome Ms Daly's comments on how we need a real conversation about the rule of law. It means that we will also need to deal not only with the likes of Bulgaria, but also Spain in terms of Catalonia.

Mr. Andrews and, I believe, Senator Chambers commented that this committee needed to be more on the ball in scrutinising European legislation and being aware of competencies and changes. They asked whether we needed a capacity above and beyond what we already had.

Brexit has been mentioned. I do not need an answer unless someone is going to say that there is a conversation happening in Europe that is different than the one we are hearing, which is that there is still absolute solidarity on the Irish protocol to the withdrawal agreement and support for Ireland in that regard.

Is there a conversation happening across Europe on the issue of aviation? We have talked about everyone agreeing with the European traffic light system, albeit not necessarily with a harmonised testing framework. Yesterday, Dr. Holohan basically told an Oireachtas committee that NPHET was not considering proposing antigen testing. Therefore, I am unsure as to whether we will have a framework in the short term. Is a wider conversation happening?

The competence of health has been mentioned.

That is a domestic competency which has created a difficulty as to harmonised action in dealing with the pandemic. I am talking about health actions but also about what the conversation is to be on the financial solutions. We are talking about getting through the gap at the moment but beyond that we need to look at something with regard to stimulus and a Marshall Plan-type situation. Again, not everyone is in agreement as to how this should proceed.