Mr. Barry Andrews:

Deputy Harkin is absolutely right. I was not in the European Parliament when the UK MEPs were there. I was one of the ghost MEPs for eight months so I did not have the opportunity to appreciate their contribution but I certainly heard hearsay that the UK Liberal Democrats had a very influential voice in our group, which is the Renew Europe Group. Their loss will be felt not just in the European Parliament by Ireland but also in the European Council. I have always imagined a great Whitehall X-ray machine that looks at all the proposals from the European Union from a common law perspective and from a free trade perspective, on which Ireland and the UK are aligned. It is accepted that that is a tremendous loss. Even in the academic space, UK universities had big European law departments that are gone now or are not as significantly resourced as they used to be. These are all big issues for Ireland and that is why it is great that we are putting more resources into Erasmus and trying to step up our consular and diplomatic representation across all the EU member states. The loss of the UK will be, and is, sorely felt by Ireland. There is no doubt about that.

We are getting through this bit of it and now we want to set up a parliamentary assembly. It is important that the UK is open to that. We wanted to highlight that with the committee today, to keep an eye on whether the UK is going to lean into that proposal within the trade and co-operation agreement, because that is how we will develop those links into the future. It is that proximity and the margins of these types of meetings that will enhance the EU-UK relationship and the Ireland-UK relationship. They have so much to contribute to us. The French are very important allies but they say there is no such thing as a permanent alliance, there are just permanent interests. The Brexit adjustment reserve has been an exercise in selling the green jersey. All the MEPs from Ireland have been developing contacts within their groups and with other groups. There are no Irish MEPs in the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, S&D, group, which is the group with which Labour and the SDLP are aligned. That is a significant loss. It is a huge group within the European Parliament with no Irish MEPs so we have to reach in there from time to time and continue to develop links there. Part and parcel of our daily work is developing those networks and alliances. From time to time we pull in the same direction but we could probably do more of it. I hope that answers the Deputy's question.