Dr. Anthony Soares:

I thank the Deputy for his questions. I will put on notice one of my colleagues, Ms Farrell, to whom I will tactfully hand over shortly in order to respond to some of them.

I will pick up on some of the points the Deputy raised, beginning with the threat to trigger Article 16 and suspend the protocol. Triggering Article 16 does not in and of itself suspend the protocol. Rather, it will only suspend certain parts of the protocol. Civic society organisations understand that the politics of this can sometimes be magnified in a way that is not helpful. We have also stressed, as I have done repeatedly, to key decision makers in this process that what is entirely unhelpful is the production of artificial deadlines. They are not helpful, particularly in the context of Northern Ireland, because such deadlines lead to artificial points of crisis, increasing tensions and increasing uncertainty around the process.

One needs to be conscious of and aware of the effects of tone and language on community, on cohesion and on our ability to undertake co-operation on a North-South and east-west basis. That cohesion is essential. Community buy-in to the idea of cross-Border co-operation is also essential.

I will hand over to my colleague, Ms Tara Farrell, CEO of Longford Women’s Link, to pick up on some of those points.