Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for appearing before the committee. I will follow up on a number of the issues he has dealt with. Obviously, the Irish protocol remains paramount for us. In fairness, it appeared that the Commission and Vice-President Šefovi pushed themselves as far as they possibly could to find a solution which, I believe, a considerable number of people in the North, even with a unionist background, who are businessmen, farmers and so forth will be quite happy to work with. I have not seen the large level of demonstrations and whatever else is happening within political unionism. Is the Minister of State aware of whether there is that general constructive feeling on the ground of just getting on with it? We have the background noise of Boris Johnson and particularly David Frost while we have the positive that there is an element of engagement, which has to be welcomed. To a degree, one is second-guessing on the basis of what someone says which might be for a particular constituency, and that can change overnight. I understand that the Minister of State cannot give complete clarity, just his interactions with regard to the North, particularly as regards the business community and so forth in respect of working this.

We also had the European Commission representation in Ireland and they said officials from the Commission were ready to go the minute these documents were done, from a point of view of ensuring all this was workable. We are all in agreement that the Irish protocol is the only show in town and is not for moving. As long as the EU and the Commission maintain that as the starting point and we get workable operational changes, that is where the future is. Anything else that is possibly being threatened would be utterly unacceptable, particularly in an Irish context.

Senator Chambers brought up the Conference on the Future of Europe and the events that are to be organised throughout this State. The European movement is carrying out lead in relation to it. It is about ensuring we get out and beyond those that are interested. It can be difficult for even regular, localised politics to get to those who see themselves as outside the political sphere. There is an onus on us to make it real and involve as many people as possible. The northern dimension is a big thing. We have a democratic deficit and there seem to be moves towards dealing with that. Will the Minister of State go into a bit of detail on that? Maroš Šefovi has been supportive. It is difficult in the North in that there is not representation or, necessarily, engagement on a localised level. That is something we would have to deal with.

What is the timeline for the rule of law issues, as regards the case in front of the European Court of Justice, ECJ? We have all asked what leverage there is within the European Union as regards dealing with breaches of the rule of law. I accept what the Minister of State has said to the effect that positive peer pressure can have an impact regarding local authorities and localised actions by councils that were twinned and pieces of work like that. Our first port of call should always be talk and negotiation, rather than leverage, but there is the question of the recovery and resilience funding. The multiannual framework or whatever one wants to call it is the big money issue. There was a difficulty in twinning that with rule of law issues. Where does that stand?

There are other issues beyond those, such as those relating to Poland and Hungary. I imagine those states from time to time say there is rule of law for them but not for some of the more senior members of the European Union or those who were there earlier. I am back talking about the disgraceful way Catalonian representatives have sometimes been dealt with by the Spanish Administration.

On the European Council, the main issues regarding Government focus at this point will relate to that. We are in a different place here as regards the pandemic. Just when we thought we were out, we are back in. It is almost like a Mafia film. The big issue is around none of us being safe until all of us are safe. I heard a great amount of narrative around the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, TRIPS, waiver. We have had a Commission representative state it is a misnomer and that there is greater capacity in the pharmaceutical community now to produce what is needed. How do we deliver what needs to be delivered throughout the developing world and provide more than COVAX, which is only looking at 20% of the populations in developing countries? I am not wedded to a TRIPS waiver, but we need a solution that means the developing world can get vaccines relatively cheaply and then we can deal with the logistical questions of getting them out. The likes of the European Union has a huge role to play in this.