Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all our contributors this morning and also for their contributions to come and generally over the past six or seven years. They have been sober voices in very difficult times. I will not lie - I have cheated many times by regurgitating what they have written in many a format while obviously giving credit and citations of course.

I will start by answering Deputy Ó Murchú's question. There will be a deal in the coming months. There will be a few bumps along the road and a bit of noise but then the difficulty will come, as already alluded to, in selling the deal and making it work. That has been the big issue. We already had a deal but no one has tried to make it work or where they have tried, there have been much louder voices trying to make it not work. We will come to a particular juncture where global geopolitics will mean that whatever happens in the coming weeks or months has to stick. There is a need for both the EU and the UK to shift attention far more clearly onto other issues, be it the war in Ukraine, the cost-of-living crisis, potential recession, the energy crisis and everything else one wants to throw at it.

I will start with a number of questions. I will try to hopefully cover all of the interventions and there will be something for everyone to reply to if they want to, depending on the Chair's latitude. First, there is a need for an increased role and relevance of institutions. Professor Phinnemore referred to the institutions within the protocol itself and the fact that they are effectively frozen. Beyond the protocol and more widely in the UK-EU relationship, but particularly the Anglo-Irish relationship in all directions, this means getting those institutions working and making them far more tangible. The obvious ones are the strand two institutions of the Good Friday Agreement and actually getting these back up and running. It is a chicken and egg situation. If you still have a DUP boycott of the North-South institutions, and still do not have an Executive, how do you make them work? Let us hope we get to a place where they come back inside the fold. How do you make institutions work in such a manner that their decisions have far more impact? That ties into the other institutions I am going to refer to. The European political community, even though it has only met once, provides a great vehicle for the EU and the UK to have a far more regular engagement. One of the great problems with Brexit, one of many, is that it removes the format for the UK to have those informal relationships with EU member states; be it at European Council meetings or Council of Minister meetings or the informal chat in the corridor, let alone around the formal table of the various other body and committee hearings. Every opportunity, whether in the European Policy Centre, EPC; the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE; NATO or the OECD, where UK ministers and parliamentarians can engage with counterparts with the EU, needs to now be maximised in a decided diplomatic effort.

Going back to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, TCA, which Dr. Cooper mentioned, this ties in with a slight bugbear of mine. I am not making a political point here but I would argue the TCA and the Good Friday Agreement institutions have not been taken seriously enough by the British Government in recent years as reflected by the fact that it was a junior minister who attended rather than the foreign secretary. I am delighted the British Prime Minister is going to the next British-Irish Council but this is a rarity that should be a constant. Deputy Howlin and I have both been at meetings of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly twice in the past calendar year which were addressed by the Taoiseach while the response from the British Government came from a junior minister. We have to look at the balance of that relationship and if people are serious about the relationship between the EU-UK, Ireland-UK, and North-South, we need to see a level of impetus led by seniority. In making all those points, my key question is where the witnesses see the scope for a formal role for the representatives in Northern Ireland.

It is being discussed by the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. Dr. Cooper referred to the fact that the only MP from Northern Ireland in the PPA is Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. If and when the assembly gets back up and running, in what context will its members have a role in that regard? Barry Andrews MEP made the point about observer status for Northern Irish representatives in the European Parliament and Séamas de Faoite from Belfast City Council has talked about it for the EU's Committee of the Regions. This is something the EU needs to do. I may be having a pop at the EU in that it needs to be far more outward-looking and engaging.

I will move on to Professor Hayward, who referred to stakeholder engagement and how the increased level of engagement has led to an increased level of understanding. We saw that in Westminster with some of the committee presentations this week. Has that level of understanding led to tangible action? Have these case studies led to policymakers, particularly those in Westminster, genuinely saying that they need to take a more realistic position when it comes to regulatory alignment or something else?

On regulatory alignment, will Professor Phinnemore elaborate on the role of the European Court of Justice? There is occasionally a flare-up, usually instigated by a British Minister or a Unionist politician, to the effect that it is a massive issue. Is that reflected in polling? Is it seen as an issue?

I will now come to a wordy conclusion. Some people might think it worthy a one, but I will not be the judge of that. The crux of the matter - this was referred to directly by Professor Shirlow and indirectly by all of the witnesses - comes down to the battle of evidence and data versus emotion. We are all professional political practitioners. Evidence versus emotion coming into any political discussion is a difficulty we all face every day, but it does provide the most obvious solution to improving relations, moving past the current impasse and having a working set of relationships. That solution is not going to be to everyone's liking, be it constitutionally or aspirationally, but it can deliver results, most importantly for the people of Northern Ireland and in the wider EU-UK and Anglo-Irish relationships. It requires leadership on the part of the EU, the Irish Government and the British Government in order to agree to those terms. There has to be an understanding that we are going to work this deal - I believe there will be a deal - on the basis of evidence, data and facts. Do the witnesses believe there is an appetite for that?