Mr. Colum Eastwood:

Apologies, I missed the presentation but I have read the report and we have already met about it. I will offer a couple of thoughts. On the 50% plus 1, it is good the speakers are clear on that. We are absolutely clear on that. There is no way of doing a democratic referendum other than 50% plus 1. I do not know how it would work. We had enough years of certain sections of the population's vote not counting for as much as another section and we cannot go back there.

I am interested in what has been said about the external impediment. The British Government is clearly impeding on this issue now. It is doing it in Scotland and in the Internal Market Bill it has given itself the power to direct civil servants on every conceivable policy area in the devolved space. That is, in my view, particularly deliberate around the Scottish referendum question. If we think it will not do that here, we are being naive. That is a big concern.

There was discussion on Article 3 in terms of unity of people versus unity of territory. I think they can be the same thing. It will be hard to do the territory without the people. This is Hume-speak but it is not that John Hume thought it was one over the other.

Around the criteria for calling a Border poll, we need to focus on the fact that the power rests with the British Secretary of State. That area was under-negotiated in the Good Friday Agreement and people who were there would say that at that stage they just wanted to get out the door and not enough consideration was given to that. It has left us in a fairly dangerous position. Professor McCrudden's points are well made around the legal position of this but I am concerned, given who is in that position. The current British Government and the Secretary of State have openly stated they are happy to break international law to suit their political purposes. We would struggle to rely on them to do the right thing.

Article 3 may not place a specific legal requirement on the Irish Government to prepare but there is a political requirement, if we accept that at some point the British Government could call a referendum. That should, as Dr. Tannam said, be done in co-operation and conjunction with the Irish Government, which should insist on that. It comes out of the Good Friday Agreement and that is based on the principle that the two Governments are guarantors of that process and they convene all the incidents around it. That needs to be nailed down early but it also means the Irish Government has a political responsibility to work towards thrashing out all the difficult issues thrown up as part of this report and every other discussion we have been involved in and roll the pitch for a referendum whenever it comes. The Brexit experience tells us it is not a good idea to stay off the pitch and not prepare.

I am grateful for the presentation and the work the other witnesses continue to do. The issue around the criteria of the Border poll will be key. More work will need to be done by all of us on that but I firmly believe the Irish Government needs to insist that is not left to the wording in the Good Friday Agreement. Politically speaking, it is clear that was not fully thought through or thrashed out in the Good Friday Agreement negotiations.