Mr. Maro? ?efovi:

I thank Senator Malcolm Byrne for his comments and questions. On the Brexit adjustment reserve fund, as I said very clearly, Ireland is the most affected country and getting the largest share, and rightly so. We are doing our utmost to disburse the money before the end of the year. This money is coming and I am sure it will be distributed shortly in Ireland. The aim of the Brexit adjustment reserve fund is to deal with the immediate consequences of Brexit, and the people on the ground will really appreciate that financial support.

After that, we will do our utmost to avoid a trade war or a dramatic development. As I explained to my British counterparts, if we were to go down that line, we would aggravate the situation. We would go through a very difficult period and it would again be up to us to pick up the pieces afterwards, and it would be much more difficult and much more complicated. Therefore, we are focusing on and putting so much energy into finding the solutions to stay at the negotiation table. It is strenuous and not always easy to show all that flexibility and creativity, which we still hope will be reciprocated by our UK counterpart.

What members can do, and this is where their role as parliamentarians would be extremely important, is to engage with their colleagues in Westminster and to communicate with them on different levels and to bring their perspective of the issue, to give their assessment of how the peace process is becoming more fragile, to say how important the situation is right now and to outline the good solutions we have to work for. I think that it would be extremely important for parliamentarians to meet their counterparts from the UK Government and to have these committee-to-committee discussions and to simply bring their view of the situation to the forefront. Members have very close contact with the legislative assembly. I do this also, in that I communicate with all political leaders in Northern Ireland and I present to them on a personal level the commitment, the energy, the goodwill and the really good faith we put into these negotiations. The more we can multiply the approach, the more we can get our story across.

Concerning the UK media, of course it is very difficult turf. I very much appreciate the help and the outreach which is done by the members' compatriot and my very good colleague, Ms Mairead McGuinness. We are communicating quite a lot, even though it is not easy to match the frequency and appearances of the UK politicians because of that natural audience. We are engaging in a press conference and in television discussions. We are trying to be as active as we can be through very concrete documentation and press releases and through transparency. We put whatever we propose on the website so everybody can see it, and we will continue in that manner. Very often the media are also interested in the points of view and in specific aspects and angles the Members of the Parliament are bringing to the discussion. I invite all of the committee members to help us to communicate these messages because their perspectives would be very much appreciated and respected in the UK, and would have additional weight.