Mr. Chris Hazzard:

Go raibh maith agat. I thank the witnesses for their evidence today. I will pick up on a couple of the points made, mostly around this notion of generosity. I will also touch on some aspects regarding debt. Much of the analysis, about debt especially, appears to be built on this notion of generosity. A few historical examples have been given to back this up, but I do not think they stand up to any sort of scrutiny at all.

The 1921 Treaty example, for instance, is not comparable at all. The realpolitik and interstate power play, and the reality of that event, were dramatically different. Treaty negotiations were conducted between the British Empire and what was an insurgent revolutionary government. If anything, one of the lessons of the Brexit negotiations in recent years is that the British Empire is long dead and gone and Ireland is not left begging for crumbs from London's table, and has not been for a long long time. The 21st-century reality is that the British State is under an international legal obligation to permit the exercise of Irish national self-determination without external impediment. This means the modern Irish State has real and tangible levers of power to ensure this comes to pass.

I think this notion of generosity is misplaced. States are led by strategic interests and in respect of debt, Britain's strategic interest will be the absorption of that debt. One of the examples in the witnesses' paper that lays this out is the Russian example. I believe the example is inaccurate. The report refers to the debts and assets of the former USSR being divided up between the various post-Soviet states, but that did not happen.

In fact, the Russian Federation absorbed the entire debt of the USSR and, indeed, even the debt of the former tsarist empire. It did so to protect its successor state’s status to ensure it retained Russia's permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Why would London not follow Moscow's example in this regard to retain Britain's role on the likes of the UN Security Council and in other international organisations? Surely Britain's international state interests will be to do so. Instead, our guests seem to suggest Dublin will have to absorb a share of the British debt, but they make no symmetrical assumption that Dublin would also receive a proportionate share of the British public assets, such as North Sea revenues, capital values of public properties or even a share of the assets of the British royal family? Why would there be that asymmetrical relationship between debt and assets and why would Dublin allow that to be the case? Surely it is much more likely that assets will stay where they are and existing debts will stay with the relevant sovereign government. Surely that is a much more likely outcome that reflects not only the strategic interests of Britain but also the modern Irish position in the world and the interplay between the two states.

Finally, the British state currently pays the pensions of British citizens in Ireland, Spain and the US. Why would it cease doing this in Ireland?