Mr. Karl Gardner:

The last meeting of the specialised committee was a couple of weeks back. There are several specialised committees and we are focusing on the committee that deals with the protocol, which is the one in which the Chair is interested. The specialised committee talks through the agreed agenda. It was a useful meeting on the last occasion because it gave us a chance to catch up on elements of the protocol that the EU had concerns about, as well as to hear what the UK was doing in terms of implementation. More broadly, it was a chance to allow the EU to once again repeat the need for complete, fuller implementation by the UK side. That, then, will feed into the next meeting of the joint committee.

The joint committee is the committee that has the power to take decisions, whereas the specialised committee is the advisory committee. The specialised committee gets a chance to go through the issues on its agenda. I do not have a date for the next meeting of the joint committee. We would hope to see a meeting soon after tomorrow's announcements, as part of that the bigger discussion around the Commission’s papers that will come out tomorrow. It feeds into that process.

Again, there is constant engagement between the co-chairs of the committee, so for the UK and then on the Commission’s side and the EU is where we feed in. There are regular meeting of the working party on the United Kingdom at Brussels, where Ireland is a constant voice that member states look to for views as to what the Commission is considering.

Members will be familiar with the work being done in Brussels by continually engaging with representatives of other member states and with the Commission. I refer to engagement with the UK service and to the broader Directorates-General, DGs, to ensure that our voice is heard. It is, therefore, a parallel but joined-up process between the political and official side.