Professor Colin Harvey:

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Chathaoirleach. I am absolutely delighted, and pleased and honoured, to be here. This is an historic moment. It is an historic process that the committee is engaged in.

I have made my written submission, which the committee can read. I will not reiterate that. In that written submission, in my professorial capacity, I have listed some of the work that I have been doing in the school of law at Queen's, at least a professor in the school of law at Queen's at this stage on a Thursday evening.

All I want to do in addressing the theme of the session this afternoon is to raise and try to answer three questions. I very much appreciated listening to all the previous speakers as well and look forward to the discussion.

I want to ask why, what and where - three questions. Unlike me, I will try to answer them.

The why question is, "Why are we here in this session talking about this subject?" We are doing it because of something of foundational and fundamental significance - the Good Friday Agreement that we will mark the 25th anniversary of next year. We really need to reaffirm the significance of that agreement here today.

What that agreement does is, in some ways, complex but, in many others, quite simple. It rests the constitutional status of Northern Ireland on consent. The agreement rests the future of this island, not on a political party, not on an institution, but with the people of this island and popular consent.

When we are thinking about the criteria for a referendum, the purpose is of fundamental significance. That essentially means, in terms of the agreement, and being conscious of having five minutes, that the people of the island of Ireland have a right of self-determination subject to the principle of consent in Northern Ireland. Essentially, what we are talking about is concurrent consent on the island of Ireland in referendums, in my view, North and South.

Aspects of the process are clear and other aspects of the process that require more debate, discussion and clarity. The initiator or trigger of the process, which attracts a lot of attention and I suspect is a focus for some of this discussion today, rests on the Secretary of State, the UK Government and the Westminster Parliament. As everyone here will be aware, there has been litigation. There has been much discussion about what that, in fact, requires. There is a duty but also a discretion in terms of what might appear likely to the Secretary of State and the discretionary component of that. As the litigation has made clear, there is considerable flexibility given to the Secretary of State but there are also constraints tied to the agreement. While, as many members will be aware, I have written a number of letters to the Secretary of State seeking more clarity and certainty in terms of the "what it means", I would like to bring us back to how I started, which is that, while we should demand more focus and attention from the Westminster Government on this issue, the future of this island will be determined by the people of this island and the conversation needs to be led from Ireland.

The focus of my opening statement is the need for planning and preparation. "Where next?", is the final question. We should keep on, and I will keep on, writing letters. It does no harm to keep bringing this up in London, too, where it is often neglected but we need to bring this back to this island. We need to plan and prepare. The civic initiatives that are operational and all the wonderful work that the committee has heard from needs to continue. The shared island unit needs to become much more ambitious and embrace the full meaning of what it means to talk about a shared island. The Oireachtas, for example, needs to continue with its work. This cannot be a one-off event. The committee has important work to continue to do and I hope this continues. We need all-island civic initiatives as well to continue and people have, quite rightly, talked about an all-island citizens' assembly or more than one to carry this work forward. All the various academic work needs to continue too. It needs to continue for this purpose because the agreement does rest the future on people. We should focus today on the criteria and what that means, but our primary focus today must be on proper planning and preparing and get it right so that political and civic society work together on this island to essentially prepare a proposition.

I will end on a personal note. At its core, this is quite simple. I live in Belfast but I am from Derry. I have travelled down here to Dublin. I have travelled from outside the EU to inside the EU and I will travel back to Belfast this evening, out of the EU. This now becomes a return option for the people of Northern Ireland to the EU. That changes the dynamic but the Good Friday Agreement gives me a choice. Every day I hear about the principle of consent. I want to exercise the choice I have. I want to be asked the constitutional question and when I am asked, I want to know in a detailed, planned and thought-through way the consequences of my answer.

I thank the committee, once again, for the invitation to be here today. I look forward to the questions and, hopefully, some answers.