Ms Alyson Kilpatrick:

The consequences of Brexit clearly had an impact on human rights and equality in both parts of the island of Ireland. Even more significant, perhaps going back to how the question was started, is how the overall direction of travel in the UK is affecting Northern Ireland. The post-Brexit consequences have been mitigated to a large extent by the Northern Ireland protocol, now the Windsor Framework. Irrespective of that, we still have a very concerted attempt to limit or exclude rights from certain rights holders or certain areas. That goes against the universality and inalienability of rights. We think this is a very dangerous shift, and it is very deliberate. In the last few days, we have heard that the bill of rights legislation, the purpose of which was to redress the balance of human rights, was not proceeding. What was made clear yesterday is that the intent behind that Bill is still proceeding, albeit that it is being split up and divided across different bits of legislation. We are concerned about the Illegal Migration Bill and the legacy Bill, among others. That is probably the most difficult thing we are facing. We have done a lot of very specific detailed briefs in relation to how the committee might assist us. I thank the committee for the offer of help. We can share all that information with members and do a further written submission.

In some ways it is more fundamental and straightforward than that. It is that the commitment to human rights is not only weakened, but it would seem to be going in the wrong direction altogether. Clearly, as a human rights commission, that is something that should concern us but it should also concern everyone on the island because it will lead to further divergence of a quite dramatic kind.

Regarding the CTA and the ETA, we still call for an extensive exemption encompassing all journeys into Northern Ireland from Ireland. We say that would be consistent with the aims of the CTA. As Ms Gibney just said, it is only really a piece of paper, unfortunately. One cannot take it into a courtroom and ask a judge to enforce it. We feel our recommendation would deal with that lack of enforceability.