Mr. Daniel Holder:

I will deal with some of those questions first. Senator Martin asked whether British citizens in the Republic should be allowed to vote in referendums. While examining that idea is open to the State, it should not have to happen in order for Irish citizens in the North to retain the right to vote in referendums. The British Government is bound by the Good Friday Agreement, which requires equality of treatment between British and Irish citizens in the North. For the UK to say that Irish citizens in the North are only allowed to vote in a referendum by virtue of being British citizens, which would be the imposition of British citizenship, would conflict with the agreement. For us, the priority is retaining the franchise without it being diminished. This goes directly to the Article 2 commitments in the protocol on the non-diminution of Good Friday Agreement rights.

Regarding David Trimble's position and comments, from our perspective, we were long concerned about Brexit because it would be in conflict, per se, with the Good Friday Agreement, in particular with the agreement's underpinning of equality of treatment for British and Irish citizens. One had a choice to be British or Irish or both and there was to be no differential treatment regardless of that choice. That will become extremely difficult with any form of hard Brexit. Irish citizens retain EU rights to freedom of movement and British citizens do not. Providing for the latter would have required a special status agreement. Many of the issues that Lord Trimble is discussing relate to the protocol, but all of these contradictions were present in Brexit perseand the support for Brexit per se.

Of course, there is no requirement for the North to be the same as England. It was certainly not the case for most of the last century between 1921 and 1972 when there was a different arrangement. Certainly, since the Good Friday Agreement, there has been the context of differentials. We have had to battle over many rights deficits. The borders on the Irish Sea are actually rights borders, for example, LGBT rights. Clearly, there are differences.

The argument that both Senators raised is that there is a deficit in representation. We have a unique situation whereby almost anyone born in the North either is or is entitled to continue to be an EU citizen but is outside a member state and is unable to exercise many of the rights under the EU that are dependent on residency in a member state, for example, co-ordination of social security systems. One of the deficits relates to the electoral franchise. It was within the gift of the Irish Government under the current mandate of the European Parliament to have done what many countries do, that is, allow extraterritorial voting for some constituencies. This might be something that the Oireachtas wishes to consider again during the next mandate of the European Parliament. That avenue is open to the Oireachtas. For the UK to do that would involve a new future arrangements agreement that would be far more complex.

On what can be done, I would be grateful if the committee considered the areas – we can provide a broader briefing document on them – that we have identified whereby the UK has already breached its commitment to non-diminution of certain rights under the Good Friday Agreement as a result of Brexit. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission may have more to say on these areas, which cover a broad range of provisions. That would be a significant step. Concerns about the impact of the hostile environment on EU nationals are at the forefront as well. It would also be useful for the Irish Government to monitor formally some of the rights deficits as they emerge. We have spoken about obvious issues, for example, the loss of Irish citizens' right to family reunification with non-EU family members. I suspect that, once people start working and moving more post referendum, many more micro issues that will have a significant impact on someone's life will come to fruition for the other EU 26 but also for Irish and British citizens, for example, a frontier worker no longer being able to avail of tax credits for cross-border childcare, which was an EU right and is now gone. There are plenty of issues that can be raised.

Regarding freedom of movement within the common travel area, we are concerned that there continue to be ad hocor irregular, and often without legal basis, passport checks conducted on the basis of racial profiling. Either a country has formal passport controls or it does not. This is a border in the Irish Sea that is rarely spoken about. In some of the checks between Northern Ireland and Britain, we have examples of black passengers and so on being targeted, as well as the risk of increased enforcement. As co-guarantor of the agreement, the Irish Government could raise this issue.