Mr. Mark Bassett:

The continuation of the Northern institutions in the case of a united Ireland is an important aspect of the conversation and the Good Friday Agreement.

The question of unity is a majoritarian one. At the moment, 50% plus 1 is enough in the North for union with Great Britain. It is a principle of democracy and equality of democracy that a comparable vote would be enough to ensure Irish unification. Against that majoritarian principle there are a number of counter majoritarian principles in the Good Friday Agreement. One of the most important of those is the shared institutions - power sharing in the Executive and assembly. There is a duty of parity of esteem on the government exercising sovereignty and that has to be taken more seriously by the Irish State. It probably has been taken seriously by the British State since 1998.

In the "Claire Byrne Live" programme last night, there were discussions about what should happen to the title of Taoiseach and Tánaiste and what should happen to the flag and symbols. The state in the North is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The flag is the Union Jack. There is no power sharing in London and a hereditary monarch is the head of state. It is very important that the shared institutions continue but also that there is an audit of those aspects of the Irish State that could be objectionable and can be amended to ensure that power is seen and the equal protection of rights is given effect.

In terms of the idea of regional parliaments within the State, I have not detected an appetite for that in any of the legal or constitutional research that I have done. I will defer to the members of the panel who would know much more about that than I do.

Senator Blaney asked about engagement with unionist politicians. To explain, this report is a legal report. What we tried to do is identify the relevant applicable legal rules, whether they exist in public international law, EU law, UK law or Irish constitutional law. We have tried to explain how they are going to apply in the case of a united Ireland. That is the purpose of the report. Some of the conclusions are very clear and some of them are contestable but we have tried to set out reasonable suggestions. This report is one of a series that was commissioned by MEPs, one of which looked at the protection of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in Northern Ireland after Brexit. Another one looked at the possibility of a special designated status for Northern Ireland in EU law. This report tried to follow that template in identifying the relevant law and explaining how it might apply in these circumstances.