Mr. Barry Andrews:

I thank Senators O'Reilly and Byrne for their questions. I will not touch on everything they raised but will work through as many of the points as best I can. The scrutiny aspect is very important. When I was in the Oireachtas, there was a dedicated subcommittee dealing with the scrutiny of EU proposals. I understand that function has been farmed out to the various committees. In other member state parliaments that scrutiny is done by an upper house. In Finland, for example, the Upper House is entirely dedicated to looking at EU regulations and directives and acts as a sort of proxy European Parliament within the Finnish Parliament. There really is an argument for Ireland to scale up that scrutiny because we scaled it back from where it had been when there was a dedicated subcommittee of the European affairs committee.

Senator O'Reilly asked what the outcome of the discussions around the protocol might be. A really sensitive point is coming in the next few weeks, when the grace period in regard to sausage meat and other meat products is due to expire at the end of June. We have seen before that the UK is willing to make unilateral extensions to grace periods. Mr. Šefovi indicated in his article today that the European Commission would act swiftly if that happened. Tomorrow's meeting of the EU-UK Partnership Council is really critical. The question of whether the UK will again ignore the agreement it signed up to and extend grace periods unilaterally will become clear very quickly thereafter. Members may recall that the extension of the previous grace period from the end of March was triggered in the first week of March. The UK Government explained on that occasion that additional time was needed. Today is 8 June and something similar has not happened yet. This would tend to suggest that the UK is prepared to agree something in regard to the grace period in this instance instead of acting unilaterally, which would be positive.

On the question of whether the whole EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement is at risk, the disputes arising from the protocol and the withdrawal agreement could end up in the European Court of Justice. As members know, there are infringement proceedings arising from the earlier unilateral extension and that matter could go all the way to the European Court of Justice. That is a potential remedy but I am doubtful as to whether it will resolve anything. Many member states are very anxious about the integrity of the Single Market and the implications of the UK ignoring its obligations under the withdrawal agreement. In effect, a sort of slow puncture in the Single Market is being created if the UK does not implement what it has signed up to do.

On sanitary and phytosanitary, SPS, measures and veterinary issues, there is an agrifood forum in which DG SANTE and the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are engaged on those issues. The EU has provided a very good solution whereby there would be a temporary alignment until such time as the UK feels it needs to diverge from the EU's SPS standards relating to food safety and animal health. We will see what happens in that regard.

Before letting the next speaker in, I will refer briefly to the point raised by Senator Byrne relating to the data issue. I have been interested in that for some time and it is a real worry. From a practical point of view, Ireland really wants the data adequacy decision to be made. The example we have all heard about is the Fermanagh accountant doing payroll for a school in Cavan, which involves a data transfer when the payroll is done every month. Without a data adequacy decision, all sorts of safeguards will have to be brought in by individual companies and public authorities, which will add a substantial cost to doing business between Ireland and the UK. The European Parliament has passed a resolution saying the UK's treatment of EU citizens' privacy in respect of data is not adequate. In addition, the European Court of Human Rights has said there are technical shortcomings in the way the UK does all of this.

Where does that leave us? We need to balance the practicality of the implications of there not being a data adequacy decision, and all the costs associated with that, with the reality that the UK is genuinely backsliding. This is a really strange situation. Normally with third countries, they are coming up to, and converging with, an EU standard. In this instance, we are beginning from a point where the UK is technically aligned with EU standards and is now beginning to diverge. A critical point is that there is a sunset clause of four years in the draft adequacy decision, which means it will be revisited. The right balance is there and we just need to add certain dimensions, such as making sure there is not mass surveillance for security purposes of EU citizens' data by the UK. We need to get that locked in.