Mr. Damian McGenity:

I thank the Acting Chairman. I also thank the Seanad for its invitation and, in particular, taking the time to look at what is a crucial issue - Brexit. In preparation for this meeting I discovered that Senator Mark Daly had done some work on the issue. There are other committees working on it, including the Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and the British-Irish committee which we hope to meet in the future.

While we do not quite know how the committee system operates here, we urge arrival at some cross-committee or cross-party consensus on gaining special status and what it might actually mean. As we state in our document, it is fundamental that dialogue open up between the Governments in Dublin, Belfast and London. If that tripartite could travel to Brussels with an agreement on the status we are seeking, it could be delivered. That is the message we want to leave the Seanad with today.