Professor Jonathan Faull:

I do not want to speculate on what might happen. I know the British Chancellor of the Exchequer is delivering his autumn statement this afternoon. Against that background of reform of the domestic welfare system, one now has this European issue. Discrimination is obviously at the heart of the problem it causes for the European Union to treat people differently in the Single Market. We will have to look at that carefully.

As some members said, this, of course, feeds into the timing question. The European Council will meet on 17 December, roughly 20 days away. Is it possible to conclude these discussions, at least between civil servants, so that prime ministers and presidents can have a detailed substantive discussion in a few weeks’ time? It is not impossible but given the complexity of some of these issues and the relatively recent date on which the United Kingdom Prime Minister sent his letter to Mr. Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, it is not going to be easy. We will see where we are before the European Council meets on 17 December. If there are papers to be written, they have to be given to prime ministers in advance so they can study and analyse them to come ready for a serious debate. If that is not possible, we will go into next year. The next scheduled European Council is in February. That gives us a few more weeks to work on these very tricky issues.

As to when the negotiations will finish, they will finish when they finish and we find mutually acceptable ways to resolve these problems. It is not for me to answer whether the United Kingdom has gone too far or not far enough. People will have political views on that. I am not a politician. What I know is what Mr. Cameron has written down in his letter. That is what we have to engage with.

The Irish position is pretty well-known in the capitals around Europe. I am sure Irish diplomats, officials and Ministers are losing no opportunity to make that clear. There is considerable understanding, therefore, of the Irish position because of its geography, history and economic with the United Kingdom. The Irish dimension is clearly under discussion and understood. The very effective Irish Civil Service is very busy doing that.

It is certainly not for me to comment on whether a Brexit would be the beginning of the end, as Deputy Durkan said in rather apocalyptic terms. I hope it does not happen. We are working hard to ensure it does not happen. However, there is no doubt that a Brexit would have considerable consequences for the Continent and our Union. Some of those are perhaps predictable, while some of them will be unpredictable and, therefore, unpredicted, as Europe reacts to this new and unprecedented development. Our outlook on all of this is that we have Mr. Cameron's proposals. We are discussing them in enormous detail in Brussels with each of the other 27 member states and other European institutions. A real negotiation has started but it is only recently started. Mr. Cameron's letter was dated 10 November. There were all sorts of exploratory talks before that. Now, we are in serious and earnest negotiations. The stakes are high for us all and we will try our best to ensure we resolve this problem as soon as possible.