Professor Colin Harvey:

I would like to raise a point about the Irish Government. We have talked about the wider human rights framework in which this all needs to be placed. I acknowledge and commend the work that has been done in securely locating some of these arguments in the position of the EU 27. That has been fundamentally important and it is also important that remains the case and that the arguments about this island remain at the heart of the conversation about the future relationship. The Irish Government has an important role in that, which is why we have heard reference to the political declaration.

I will speak to the issue of Irish citizenship with regard to Irish citizens in the North. It is something to which the Irish State, people in the South of Ireland, and the Irish Government really need to pay attention. I have a sense that something is happening with regard to Irish citizens of which people need to be aware. With regard to the Good Friday Agreement, we have heard about parity of esteem, mutual respect and equality of treatment. There is a sense that is being disrespected on a sustained basis. I am conscious that other people may have other views about that but I want to put it out there that Irish citizens in the North sense that tangibly. We have seen the confidence and supply arrangement between the current government in London and the Democratic Unionist Party.

Not a day goes by without reference to the precious union. Speaking as an academic, I have been to many conferences in the UK where people agonised for days over the fate of the UK's constitution. I have spoken at those conferences and engaged in that conversation, but, speaking somewhat personally here today, when one raises a question about the constitutional future of this island, it seems to invite a rather different response. We need to recognise that we have to conduct a conversation about the constitutional future of this island in a mature way, and with a measure of civility. That is about constitutionalism on this island. I have been at many events as an academic where we have talked about constitutionalism on the other island in the UK and we need to have one about this island as well.

I am speaking here today as an Irish citizen who is not about to wave my passport in front of the committee, and what I pick up is a sense that, to be candid, the passport I have does not seem to hold any sort of inferior status because I was born in Derry and now live and work in Belfast. There is a sense in which that really matters for Irish citizens, however, I pick up an odd mood in the Irish State and Government about recognising the fact that there is a broader context in the North. There is a broader human rights framework, but there are also Irish citizens in the North who are not in a very good place and who feel fundamentally disrespected in terms of some of the things we have been talking about this afternoon. The Irish Government seems to be remarkably anxious about upholding the rights of some of its own citizens who live in the North of this island. If there is one thing the Irish Government should do, it is to lose that anxiety and caution about defending, acknowledging, and recognising the rights of Irish citizens in the North of this island in the context of the broader human rights and equality framework we talked about this afternoon.

My final point in relation to that is very clear. I accept, acknowledge and commend the work the Irish Government has done thus far in these negotiations, but if there are things it can do in relation to, for example, voting rights and the democratic deficit that we have just heard about, then why not go ahead and do it, and make some of these verbalised commitments meaningful in practice so that democratic deficit is addressed, and those voting rights are respected. I have talked about the broader human rights framework, and speaking personally as an Irish citizen and a European citizen, I think that Irish citizens in the North have had enough. They want to see an Irish Government that confidently speaks up for the rights of everyone in the North, that recognises that the Irish citizens who live in the North do not have a second-class version of Irish citizenship, and to see that reflected in Irish Government, law, policy, and practice. I thank the Chairman.