Dr. Anthony Soares:

I thank the Deputy for her questions. I will briefly respond to those questions. On the context for engagement and the wider civic society engagement beyond business, we did not at all mean to minimise in any way the importance of engagement with the business sector on how the protocol is implemented and how we shape to post-Brexit context. We were trying to emphasise that we must try to avoid a dialogue between those responsible for the implementation of the protocol that prioritises business and trying to arrive at business solutions almost to the exclusion of wider civic society. If there is not that wider civic society engagement, there is a potential for arriving at solutions that work well for business but do not fit into, or do not necessarily land well, within wider civic society. The solutions might need to be arrived at through that wider civic society dialogue to avoid that potential of solutions that might work for business but which might not be immediately acceptable within communities on the island of Ireland, for whatever reason.

The Deputy referred to CAWT and co-operation in the health area, as well as the SEUPB and the programmes it manages through EU funding.

It is enormously rich and positive. The programmes that are funded by the EU and managed by the special EU programmes body, SEUPB, have enabled us to do so much cross-Border co-operation and brought us light years ahead of where we were 20 years ago. It has been extremely positive and in that sense, we are really hopeful that the new PEACE PLUS programme will enable us to continue to do the same or even more in terms of North, South, cross-Border co-operation going forward. The PEACE PLUS programme represents an enormous opportunity for us all in terms of wider civic society working together to exploit the opportunities that exist through co-operation. Obviously there are some difficulties at the moment in terms of final sign off on the financial package because of obstacles at the political level around strand two but we are really hopeful that we can arrive at a solution very quickly in order to finalise the PEACE PLUS programme. People are desperately waiting for that to hit the ground. The committee will be very aware that many civic society organisations that have been in receipt of EU funding in the past are very fearful of the gap between funding ending under the current programme and the beginning of the new PEACE PLUS programme. It is important to avoid an overly long gap between one programme and the other.

Regarding civic society engagement with the mechanisms of the protocol, I would point to the fact that there have been initiatives from the UK Government and the European Commission, with the co-chairs of the joint committee on the withdrawal agreement and the co-chairs on the specialised committee on the protocol engaging with civic society. We have been part of that engagement but what we have been trying to point out is that going forward, we must ensure there is a more structured process of engagement.We must be made aware of the agenda in advance of any meetings and know what issues will be discussed at those meetings. Minutes must be kept and people must know who is present at those meetings. In that way, civic society organisations that are not directly at the table will know which organisations are going to be there so that they can give feedback to them and raise issues with them. Similarly, those representatives who are at the table can provide feedback to others on the progress, or lack thereof, on issues between meetings. We need a more structured process because to date, we would have to characterise it as rather ad hoc. There are no agendas, we do not know who is going to be present at the meetings and we do not know what happens between meetings. For all we know, a lot might be happening in the background. Officials from the UK Government and the European Commission might be doing lots of work on the issues raised at these meetings but we are not aware of it because there is no real feedback. One of the current obstacles is the lack of work on a structured process for civic society engagement. In terms of civic society engagement around North-South co-operation, that dialogue must involve organisations at the two poles, the two sides of that co-operation. We must avoid working just with organisations in Northern Ireland to discuss issues around North-South co-operation because co-operation involves both sides. We need representation from organisations in the Republic of Ireland as well.

Obviously, at the end of the day we do not make the decisions but we want to be involved in the dialogue. We are entirely aware of that and are not asking to be decision makers in that regard. The decision makers are the UK Government and the European Commission in terms of their oversight. They are the ultimate decision makers but we want to inform them so that they can arrive at decisions that will ensure we maintain the necessary conditions for North-South co-operation as set out in Article 11 of the protocol. We need to be able to engage in dialogue.

In terms of the agricultural sector and dairy, Deputy Harkin is absolutely right. We know her as a champion of Border counties and of cross-Border co-operation. She is very familiar with the integrated nature of the agrifood sector on the island of Ireland. We have seen strategies produced by both jurisdictions on the future of the agrifood sector, including the Northern Ireland agrifood sector, which speak of an all-island agrifood sector. That is the way they operate and that is the way they wish to continue to operate. However, from the Northern Ireland perspective, farmers' representative groups have raised the issue of the east-west dimension and how that might impact their operations going forward. Again, we hope that we will arrive at solutions that mitigate those impacts and really make the agrifood sector even more dynamic going forward, to the benefit of our communities, particularly those in the Border counties.