Mr. Daniel Holder:

The electronic travel authorisation has not commenced. I do not know if the Irish Government has made specific representations towards it. It would be very welcome if it did. It would be welcome if there was greater engagement from the Department of Foreign Affairs with some of the citizens' rights that are prevalent from this. Certainly at the time of Brexit and other issues, there was a very strong line of communication. That needs to be upped again. I know some of the trade issues may well have dominated but we as a sector would benefit from greater engagement with the Department and a channel to raise these issues quite quickly because there is a lot in the minutiae that can come up in general. That would be welcome but I do not know if the Irish Government has made representations. One of the issues is the existence of a common travel area forum but it meets essentially behind closed doors. This is between the two governments. I assume it involves the Department of Justice and the Home Office. We only really became aware of this forum because it was referenced in the memorandum of understanding that the two governments completed about the common travel area. There is no public record of these meetings or what they cover so certainly that would be a forum in which this could discussed and where the Irish Government could raise it.

There are so many key priorities but some of the issues we are raising involve the gaps in retention of EU rates so that if people do not have settled status, they find themselves falling into an irregular situation. From a cross-border perspective, the issue of frontier workers is pressing. The Centre for Cross Border Studies estimates the number is between 20,000 and 30,000. There will be a number of rates deficits that come forward and become apparent, particularly if we move out of being so strangled by the pandemic and people begin to move, work and change jobs a lot more often. Some of the other rates deficits will come to the fore. It would be welcome if there was some channel to engage more regularly with the Irish Government regarding some of the non-economic issues such as the citizens' rights issues we are discussing today.