Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Sobral. I promise I will not be succinct but rather more circular in my commentary. I apologise in advance.

In fairness, some of what I was going to deal with has already been dealt with as regards the Brexit adjustment reserve. There will be flexibility once this money is used as a mitigation of the impact of Brexit. The fishing industry will need much more than what is in the Brexit adjustment fund. We are dealing with the outworkings of the quota arrangements post the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement and the difficulties Ireland has always had in relation to the Common Fisheries Policy, CFP. That is obviously for another day and another forum, however. I am just stating the position.

On the PEACE PLUS programme, members of the republican ex-prisoner network had difficulties in that they did not believe they were sufficiently catered for. This was brought to my attention, particularly by Mr. Kevin Mulgrew, who died recently. He will be a serious loss to the community sector, republicans and others in Dundalk and further afield. In my dealings with the SEUPB, I sometimes brought up the issue people had with governance and administrative difficulties regarding projects. They have indicated that the difficulties sometimes lie here and whether it is the local council or the State, the governance rules are not necessarily taken properly from Europe and what is actually imposed is rather more difficult for people to operate. Mr. Sobral might comment on that. It may be necessary for training or whatever to be provided to the State regarding best practice around dealing with that.

Sometimes these projects are run through local councils. In certain peace projects, there has not been flexibility and relatively daft scenarios have sometimes been imposed. We all accept the idea of peace funding. I know of a particular project, however, that required a significant number of interactions with the Protestant community in the South. It is not that I can speak on behalf of Protestants but I imagine they do not quite see themselves in the same light as the Protestant, unionist and loyalist community in the North. Sometimes people will end up putting on a paper show to make sure they tick the boxes to secure funding. What really needs to matter is the impact of the projects and that we are carrying out projects that are viable and worth doing.

I will make an apology now because I am very quickly going to go above and beyond the remit of Mr. Sobral and what he has chosen to discuss. I do so because he is appearing on behalf of the European Commission. We have seen the ongoing solidarity that is being shown around the Irish protocol. Mr. Maroš Šefovi had a private meeting with the committee last week in which he was very straight with regard to the Irish protocol being the only show in town. He was very diplomatic in stating that there are difficulties in dealing with David Frost and the British but that he hoped to bring about a successful conclusion or what may be one of many conclusions. Following that meeting, we heard that the British Government is proposing a nationality and borders Bill, which will create great difficulties. I am from Dundalk, which is right on the Border. Louth is my constituency. This legislation would create difficulties for people living in my constituency. These could be non-Irish EU citizens who may need to use some sort of online notification before travelling to the North. It is obviously unworkable and something on which we require the Commission to be very strong. The committee has already committed to do some work on the issue.

Will Mr. Sobral comment briefly on the EU's position as regards vaccines and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS, waiver. There are serious worries that we are doing an insufficient amount on this. We all accept the solidarity that has being shown across Europe with regard to the vaccine roll-out but none of us is safe until all of us are safe.

I would not be overly concerned if someone said it is an alternative to the TRIPS waiver. However, they need to put in a solution that will deliver vaccinations across the developing world, particularly in the context of what we are now dealing with in the Omicron variant.

I would also like to know what the conversations are at European Commission-level about the energy crisis. What particular role can Europe take? I accept that some things are beyond national governments, but the European Commission is a major player. It can obviously have more of an impact.

On the cohesion funding, I agree with much of what Deputy Calleary in particular has said. We may need this sort of funding into the future, because the fact is that the conversation on Irish unity has started. While the Commission and the EU will not necessarily have to advocate for it, but they will have to have plan for that eventuality. When we eventually deal with that, post the referendum, that the European Commission and EU will have to play its part in delivering a smooth transition. I have no doubt that they will.

I thank the Chair and I apologise for going slightly tangential to Mr. Sobral’s opening statement