Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have a couple of questions, coming from two angles. The first touches on Mr. O'Ceallaigh's comments on the Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland.

What does Mr. O'Ceallaigh believe the future for the Good Friday Agreement will be if the engagement between both Governments that is required to maintain the agreement is curtailed? Ask we all know, peace in Northern Ireland is always a work in progress. It is never finished; it is ongoing.

A member of the unionist community raised the Northern Ireland protocol with our committee some weeks ago when we had an engagement with parliamentarians from the North on the issue. One of the things put to the committee, which I answered, was that we were very much focused on the negative impact on the Good Friday Agreement if we were to have a border on the island of Ireland. The protocol was designed to avoid having a border on the island and we have achieved that. People can still move freely, taking Covid restrictions into account, obviously. There is no physical border. However, from his perspective, there is now a border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. His view was that that also has a damaging effect on the Good Friday Agreement from the perspective of the unionist community. I found it hard to disagree with him. Even though we were not the cause of this, I can see how they would take that view.

We were discussing many of the things that have blown up since January in the context of the impact of the protocol. There has been much focus on the practical elements such as trade issues, the importation of seed potatoes, flowers, soil, etc. Those are the kinds of things we can resolve. They are solvable issues. I made the point at that meeting that even if we were to overcome those practical issues, it still would not solve the problem that the unionist community now see the protocol as presenting an identity issue for them. I am not sure what the solution is to get out of this. I am not sure what the options are for the unionists to lead their community on this issue because they have taken it to be such a fundamental attack on their identity and on their place within the United Kingdom - the Union. I ask Mr. O'Ceallaigh to answer those questions on Northern Ireland before I come back to the other matters.