Mr. Stephen Douds:

I thank the Chair and Dr. Soares and Deputy Ó Murchú for his question. Some members may already be aware of the Irish Association. It is one of the longest-standing organisations promoting non-party political co-operation across the island. We are a membership-driven forum, and membership is open to all, regardless of party, religious belief and existing party political membership. The thrust of the aims of our organisation is for better relations. Our fuller title from our foundation was the Irish Association for Culture, Economic and Social Relations. I imagine when the organisation was founded that people could not conceive of political co-operation.

At the time of the Brexit vote in 2016, we had members on our council who were pro-Brexit. Those were people from a broad unionist background, what I think Deputy Ó Murchú referred to as "political unionism". Nonetheless, they were members of an organisation that wanted good relations across the island and that was an impartial forum for dialogue and debate. That speaks to people having multiple identities, in 2016 and today. In Belfast, where I live and where I am the chair, we alternate in our executive team every two to three years between North and South. I succeeded Bob Collins, formerly of RTÉ, who also spent 15 years after that in public life and civic society up here in Northern Ireland. It is worth pointing out therefore that people have multiple identities. There are people in Northern Ireland, then, with long-term constitutional aspirations for the maintenance of the Union and there are other people in our organisation with different constitutional preferences. This has been a challenging time therefore because we have been on diverging paths since the vote on Brexit in 2016.

As we operate the protocol now, however, as I think the Deputy said, we must recognise that there is complexity below that of the formal political level in other areas of economic co-operation, cultural life and social relations. Bringing this issue back to an earlier question, while party political representatives are asking for Article 16 to come into play and perhaps seeking the abandonment of the protocol, they represent people who have more complexity. Recognising that aspect might mitigate the current and delicate crisis in which we find ourselves. I thank the committee.