Mr. Barry Andrews:

I am in the House of Lords tomorrow where the Lords will ask exactly the same question. There is a three-hour slot to hear people talk about how the UK Government and UK Parliament can address the democratic deficit. They want to fill in the deficit. There are so many ways it can be done. There are mechanisms in the Good Friday Agreement, particularly under Strand 2, articles 16 and 17, that describe work that can be done to make sure that Northern Ireland MLAs and the Executive have the furthest upstream visibility of what is coming from the European Union. We have been talking here about what the Oireachtas can do that but that is what is sought to be addressed. A mechanism was mentioned earlier in terms of having a subcommittee of the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly dedicated exclusively to Northern Ireland affairs. If you read Lord Frost's command paper from July 2021, he decries the democratic deficit as well. Everyone seems to be aiming towards addressing it. Hopefully the vast amount of suggestions out there can be successful.

On Covid, I see the European Union not as a regulatory monster but as deregulatory in its nature. It sweeps away checks at borders, and various restrictions on the movement of goods and services across the 27 member states. We have seen this very successfully in Covid with the procurement of vaccines for our own member states and the digital Covid certificate. On Senator Conway's exact question, we have to recognise that post-pandemic, there must be a better system globally of governance of the procurement and distribution of vaccines. I voted consistently in favour of the TRIPS waiver. We need a system where the wealthy countries are not at the top of the queue all the time. It is disastrous for developing countries.