Mr. Neil Willoughby:

Just today, Manufacturing NI released the results of a survey of more than 350 of its companies. While noting clearly throughout that there are some challenges with the opening weeks of the protocol's operation, there is overwhelming support for the protocol and efforts to make it work. There is already some acknowledgement that in the first couple of weeks it has worked. It is great to have that acknowledgement from Northern Ireland business that on a Great Britain to Northern Ireland basis it is working quite well.

I should highlight that the protocol only deals with the physical, so there are certainly some challenges for trade and services of which we must be aware. As Senator Byrne noted, there is the question of data flows and this will be a particular issue if, beyond July, there is no data adequacy decision and there would effectively be a data border between North and South on this island.

We confirmed another matter yesterday in discussion with the European Commission task force. This is the mutual recognition of professional qualifications. It is not included in the trade and co-operation agreement and we had confirmation yesterday that even that protection to work, live or study fully in either jurisdiction does not give the automatic right for professional qualifications to be recognised. It is something the Irish and British Governments need to work on together and there must be more capacity in general for the protocol in Ireland and Northern Ireland to be actualised. We must recognise that there must be a substantive amount of work to make the legal guarantees in the protocol actualised. We are highlighting these examples of data and professional qualifications.