Examination of witnesses
Dr Paul Gillespie, Professor John O'Brennan and Dr Etain Tannam.
Q85 The Chairman: In drawing things together for a formal start, I welcome our first panel in our evidence-gathering session in Dublin. We represent the overall House of Lords European Union Select Committee, which as some of you know is constituted into a series of specialist sub-committees. In relation to consideration of Brexit they, and my colleagues here engaged with them, are all doing detailed work to get an initial analysis of the implications of what will be the salient issues.
We have taken on a slightly more overarching role, looking at some of the constitutional implications. It is very clear that the sensitivity of the whole Anglo-Irish relationship is important, and that is why we are looking at that first. There will be other issues that we might explore in the UK. You may be aware that we have separate consultative machinery in our structure to look at European affairs with the devolved Administrations of the UK—the so-called EC-UK mechanism. That has brought the Clerk and me to Stormont a couple of times. We have typically had representation from Dublin when we have done that. We may have been aware of these issues ourselves, but as a Committee it is the first time we have considered them for some time. We are extraordinarily grateful to you for coming in.
It might be sensible to invite you, for the record, to introduce yourselves. If you want to say a couple of words about your take on things, that might give us something to start on.
Dr Paul Gillespie: We are delighted to engage with you. It is worth saying that the three of us are on the committee of a new network that we have set up, which is called the Islands and Unions Network: TIUN in short. It is a group of academics and some policymakers working on constitutional issues between Britain and Ireland as they arise from the Brexit decision. We got that going in June. We now have 140 or 150 academics and others on our list of contacts who have signed into it. We are having one of our first meetings in November here in Dublin.
We will be looking at issues of constitutional change in the UK and Ireland, doing research, organising public meetings and stakeholder events, and thinking about disseminating both the information we have and more academic publications. It is worth saying that it is quite a big breakthrough. Michael Keating from Edinburgh and Aberdeen and Anand Menon and a number of other academics are involved. There is particularly strong Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish membership. The three of us are on that committee. We are activating that. I underline the importance of the research side of it, and therefore the importance of funding where we can bring value as academics and researchers. It will require a funding initiative in Britain and Ireland and the various centres. That is a kind of lobbying point but a necessary one.
As to my own interests, I have been involved with these issues over a number of years and have written several books with the Institute of International and European Affairs. I am trying to bring my own understanding of British-Irish relations in the European setting to bear on the Brexit decision. One of the areas that interests me is the issue of variable geometry or flexibility—differentiated integration. There is a nexus between what happens in the UK in this respect, with devolution and the idea that there might be separate outcomes for Northern Ireland, Scotland, and now even for London. That kind of model is what I would call a pluralist constitutional approach to the issue as distinct from a harder, more centralist—if you like, more sovereigntist—account of what Brexit would mean, which would be less open to that variable outcome.
In a similar way there is a range of views on the issue—not quite a continuum—in the European Union, in Brussels and among the Council. The way it pans out will be very interesting over the next period. It is not only an academic issue; it bears very strongly on policy, as we see almost daily. That is one of my own takes on it.
Dr Etain Tannam: My area is similar in some ways to Paul’s. We are both very interested in British-Irish, Anglo-Irish relations. I was on research leave before the Brexit referendum and have been researching the British-Irish relationship in the 21st century for a book for OUP. Then Brexit happened, so now everything is delayed..
My specific area of interest is the institutionalisation of the relationship since the Anglo-Irish agreement—how that has consolidated and developed the relationship. I am interested, in a different way, in variable geometry and its impact on cross-border relations. I put in a research bid, which is linked to the book, to the Irish Research Council on whether every area is negatively affected by Brexit functionally, or whether there are grounds to believe that co-operation can prosper even with the UK out of the EU. We would all—the three of us—prefer the UK to be in the EU, but there may be variable impacts on different sectors. Some areas might develop with British-Irish motivation and prioritisation.
Professor John O'Brennan: I hold the Jean Monnet chair of European integration at Maynooth University. I have specialised in the politics of integration for more than 20 years. There are two vectors to my research. One is the EU relationship with central and eastern Europe, and the other is Ireland and the EU. I have studied Irish referendums; for example, the multiple reasons for failure of some referendums, and the dynamics that underpinned those failures and other successes, depending on one’s point of view.
My key interest is in the impact that Brexit may have on Ireland’s position in the European Council. Rightly, enormous attention has been paid to the economic impact of Brexit and to the constitutional issues. My interest is slightly different. It is what happens to Ireland within the Council. In some ways, the UK and Ireland have a very paradoxical relationship in the EU, in that over time Ireland lessened its dependence on the UK significantly in economic terms from an export range in the 60s in 1973 down to 17%; decoupling from sterling in 1979 and so on. Paradoxically, the political relationship between London and Brussels has deepened significantly, especially over the last 20 years. I hope that we can explore those issues about the politics of Brexit, both in the immediate sense of negotiations and subsequently.
Q86 The Chairman: Thank you very much for those presentations, which help to colour this discussion. If you feel that we are not doing justice to them with any of our questions you can interpose before the end and make a contribution, but even what you have said has been very challenging. Off script, as it were, I have a couple of thoughts for you. First, we are beyond pleasantries and are interested in the reality. As you have already touched on, John, there is a much easier working relationship between the British and Irish Governments, and more generally in society, and probably a better understanding than there would have been, say, at the time of accession, leaving aside the Troubles and what happened subsequently, and the euro and all that. In a strange way, the countries have grown together and that ought to be productive for a sensible outcome. That is a general point.
The second point, which is something that struck us in Belfast, is that for a number of reasons, including political reticence in the past, some of the issues in relation to Brexit were not particularly salient, certainly in Northern Ireland and questionably here, before the referendum, but have now become very intense. First, is there a sense in which you feel that these Brexit-related issues are now starting to go in a way that they had not before? Were you ploughing a lonely furrow, which has now become a mass crowd-funding exercise in ploughing the field? We will note but are unable to help directly on the funding bids. We know many of the academics you referred to, Paul. Secondly, do you feel this is against the background of better knowledge and sympathy between the people and their Governments? It is a general point. I do not want you to go into it at length because we have an agenda to fill.
Dr Paul Gillespie: I have used the term “normalisation of the relationship” in the work I have done on interdependence between the two countries. There would be some variation of interpretation as to the way in which the European issue helped that along, or helped the peace process along. I make strong cases for the influences on both sides.
The European setting was indispensable in reducing the dependency that John referred to. It is a complex interdependence and it allowed normalisation in all sorts of ways—interpersonal, political and intergovernmental. The North feeds into that. We can discuss further the extent to which that is the case. Brexit, therefore, takes up a lot of those themes, but it is a genuine shock to our system and to the totality of relations—that famous phrase—in these islands. It is an asymmetric shock as well in comparative terms. The impact on Ireland compared with the other member states of the EU is stronger and heavier. Some people say it might resurrect the Troubles, although I think that is sometimes exaggerated.
The issues you refer to cover a large agenda. Ruairi Quinn, for example, said the other day that this is the biggest shock to our relationship since the Second World War. That is probably true. Again, you can interpret that and it can be exaggerated, but because it is of that calibre and quality it tends to hit many aspects of the relationship. Therefore, people are agitated as seriously as they are.
The Chairman: Are there any other comments on that?
Professor John O'Brennan: I note that in his testimony to the Committee our Ambassador in London, Mr Mulhall, pointed out that up to 25 meetings a day are held in Brussels where Irish and British officials are in contact with each other. That is very significant. The big question that arises is, absent that kind of everyday contact, how are relations between senior civil servants going to evolve, and between political actors as well? That is a question of deep import for me and for others. It is the kind of intensive activity we associate with the Council and what goes on in the margins of the Council. In many instances, the commonality of interests between Ireland and the UK means that those officials meet each other informally, as well as in the formal setting of the Council. There is a big question as to whether that relationship might be replicated in North-South relations and in east-west relations through the British-Irish Council and through other fora.
Dr Etain Tannam: I concur with that. We were talking informally before the session. There is a difference in time periods. The role of the EU from 1973 to 1985 and onwards was significant, and is significant, but that was when the relationship was poor; it goes back to the Thatcher era and the many crises—the H-block and all of that era. Trying to be optimistic again, my hope would be that the institutions that are now there and the strength of the relationship can, in some way, compensate for Brexit.
Paul talked about the asymmetrical effects. Between Ireland and England, in the British-Irish relationship, the effect is probably perceived as more important for Ireland than for the UK. I have seen very little in the British media about Northern Ireland. I have seen a lot more about Scotland. For the Irish Government, the priority must be to bring home that this is so important. Again, if we go back historically, it was only when there was violence that it became prioritised. When there was a crisis the British-Irish relationship began to strengthen, and the EU was a big factor, but now there is peace, Northern Ireland may not be prioritised, so I would worry about complacency.
Q87 The Chairman: Thank you for that. To respond briefly to the comments made, particularly, but not exclusively, by John, those of us on this side of the table who have had either ministerial or official experience—in my case recently, work for COSAC with my counterparts in the Oireachtas—would echo what you said about the importance of the bilateral relationship, and the ability in the margins to raise matters that were not necessarily on the agenda at that moment but may be of concern. Let us store that as a consideration and come to our first formal question. The new Brexit Secretary David Davis repaired to Dublin for his first international visit, and has identified UK-Irish issues as one of the more difficult elements in the Brexit negotiation. In a sense, we are all on the same page; that is why we are here. Given the shared history and the nature of the relationship, how much is it desirable to establish a specific bilateral UK-Irish deal, and—perhaps in square brackets—an and/or position, going forward to the Brexit negotiations with 28 in total, taking account of the uniqueness of this relationship? If it is desirable, how can it be effected?
Dr Paul Gillespie: Taking up the institutionalised setting, and taking John’s point about subtracting that interaction in Brussels, what institutionalised setting do we have? We have the British-Irish Council as an east-west setting. It has suffered from a rather limited and unambitious agenda and very often, in fact usually, from an absence of high representation from Westminster, England or London, compared with the other places. I do not know whether you can develop that as a new institutionalised arrangement to match the North-South strengthening that is going on. The North/South Ministerial Council is developing a stronger agenda on Brexit-related EU issues, which is very interesting. The 2012 arrangement between the Prime Ministers and the Secretary-General is interesting and working away. To some extent, it depended on the personal relationship between Enda Kenny and David Cameron. How do you develop that? There has been talk in some of the meetings we have been having about the medium to long-term need for a new British-Irish agreement in this kind of area. That is feasible.
The Chairman: The Irish Foreign Minister, Charlie Flanagan, has been talking about that sort of legal recognition.
Dr Paul Gillespie: Yes, but it is clear that they have to balance that with their European commitment; they have to balance the bilateral against the multilateral. There is no discernible weakening of the multilateral commitment. That is going to be there, and the political balance that they found is a difficult one.
Dr Etain Tannam: I echo that. It depends on what is meant by a specific British-Irish deal, but I do not think there can be an arrangement outside the multilateral deal arrangements. Ireland’s task is to balance its commitment to the UK British-Irish relationship and not in any way antagonise or undermine its success in getting outcomes for Northern Ireland vis-à-vis its EU partners. That is a balancing act. A specific deal, no, but special status for Northern Ireland has been mentioned: the idea, as in the past, of protocols and different things added to agreements that recognise Northern Ireland as a different case because of the conflict.
Professor John O'Brennan: To leave Northern Ireland aside for a moment, the issue of whether Ireland and Britain might build a more deeply institutionalised relationship will partly depend on the attitude of the other 27 to that relationship. Putting aside the question of special status for Northern Ireland, a common error being made in the UK, in commentary if not at political level, is that a deal with the EU can be expedited quickly because you are dealing with the European Union as an entity. That is not the case. You are dealing with 27 different member states with their own specific agendas and interests.
The Chairman: And the European Parliament.
Professor John O'Brennan: And the European Parliament. I do not think anything should be taken for granted about that, not least what kind of institutional form the new relationship between Ireland and the UK will have.
Q88 The Chairman: I will ask two short questions and then we will move on to other questions. The first is the immediate issue of the all-island civic dialogue proposed by the Taoiseach, taking place at the beginning of November. Do you see that as a good forum for rehearsing some of these all-island issues, not necessarily at official level but at civic society level, as a principle? I appreciate it is early days yet, but is that the sort of vehicle for explaining the voice of Irish interests that you would look for as positive?
Dr Paul Gillespie: Yes. The initial proposal was for a more elaborate forum, which would have political parties, political leaders and executives, as well as civil society. They backed off from that. As you know, Arlene Foster did not want to go along with it. The way I read it is that this forum is more informal and more civil-society oriented, and is likely to be attended by a good range of people from the North—organisations, civil society people. It is not overinstitutionalised. It might meet several times and it will produce a report. It is a useful supplement to what is undoubtedly a strengthening at the North/South Ministerial Council level, which brings together the important people, the executives and political leaders. We will see how far it goes.
Dr Etain Tannam: It is a useful supplement. It is not going to be fundamental.
Professor John O'Brennan: There are two models that the Government had in mind. One was a so-called national forum on Europe, which was set up in the immediate aftermath of the failure of the Nice treaty referendum in 2001. That brought all the different political parties together with civil society. It was useful. I would not like to exaggerate its impact, but it was useful.
More recently, and perhaps more importantly, we have had a constitutional convention, which has been a useful exercise. We are currently going through a citizens’ assembly to look at abortion rights. There are precursors for this. Like Paul and Etain, I hope that might feed into the conversation as it evolves and as the negotiations potentially kick off in the spring.
Q89 The Chairman: My final point, which we did not hear much about yesterday, is on what might be termed the phasing of these negotiations. It is prompted by something John said. There was a slight impression that this was a one-off exercise in which everything would be bundled and decided. Even those of us who know only a little of Article 50 know that it is more complex than that. There are those who say that six or seven different arrangements will have to be made in due course, not all of a trade nature. Do you see that the complexity of some of the Anglo-Irish issues is such as to lead to possibly a more phased approach, where there is some sort of understanding in principle in the initial negotiations that might then be fleshed out in detail at later stages of development? You are nodding, John. Do you see it that way?
Professor John O'Brennan: Yes, except that everything is highly contentious. Even the starting point for negotiations is contested to a degree. The result on 23 June did not come as a complete shock. It is arguable that our Government were better prepared than the British Government for what might ensue. In fact, I was in Brussels on the day Prime Minister Cameron announced his intention to hold a referendum, in January 2013. It was at the outset of the Irish presidency of the EU. There, I remember distinctly that the Irish Minister for European Affairs spoke volubly and openly about the challenges and representations that would be made to government.
There was a sense in government that it would be useful to make at least some preparations in advance. That process has obviously accelerated since 23 June, but anything that feeds into it is useful. A civil society dialogue should be considered in that sphere.
Dr Paul Gillespie: That contestedness and sensitivity must obviously be borne in mind, but in principle there is a lot that can and should be done bilaterally within the multilateral framework, and it should be prepared for and explored. It is probably easier to explore the bilateral than for Mrs May to explore the multilateral, but it has to be within that wider setting.
Dr Etain Tannam: I see how you can have a phased approach, but on a number of core principles, such as free travel, it would have to be decided.
The Chairman: I was thinking aloud. If you reach an agreement in principle, including possibly an agreement for some kind of special arrangement between our two countries in relation to the island of Ireland, it then opens the possibility that you might explore the technical issues about, say, the common travel area or whatever at a later stage, which is what we would like to do with you, if we may.
Q90 Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: First, could I comment on the academic interest? The differential geometry is fascinating. We have played around with this in the UK for a long time. For a while I was responsible for devolution in England—massively unsuccessfully, I might say. I was engaged for a while with Spain and other European countries that were very interested in it. It seems to me that the UK is very split on this and the current Government are quite split on it. With your academic group, you are talking academically about Scotland going one way, Wales another and Northern Ireland another, having to make relationships with the European Union. Places like Spain will have a key interest in that. I would be really interested if you are talking with them too, because it has brought their country to a standstill at the moment. Anyway, that is an aside, but it will be interesting for us in the longer term, in these relationships, to see what you find out from other European countries. They may then say, “We are not prepared for the UK to go as far as that in differential agreements for different parts of the UK.”
The Chairman: Before Hilary asks her question, perhaps I could flag up a question for everybody else. We would very much regard this as a continuing open dialogue. We are not just going to do a report and walk away from it. There will be the Brexit process, but it will be a continuing area of interest to us.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: I am sorry for that aside, Chairman.
The Chairman: No, that is helpful.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: It struck me that it was something we had not talked about and that it could be another little thing that we work hard on. If we do not understand where the rest of the EU is coming from, it might be a blind alley.
As we were saying, the UK Government and the Prime Minister have said that they do not want to see a return to the hard border. Yesterday, the people we were talking with were much exercised by that and what it would actually mean. Given that the Irish border will now become the border between the UK and the European Union, there are all sorts of questions and issues around that. Then we noticed the work in the Guardian and the Irish Times highlighting that the UK has been talking to the Irish Government about hardening up the borders between the European Union and Ireland. We wondered what your response was to all this chat and discussion.
Dr Etain Tannam: The fact that Ireland is not in Schengen is relevant. There are aspects that were related to the rest of Europe and the EU that did not relate to us, and can minimise some of the threat of the border being hardened. We have had our own travel arrangements. We have a free travel area, and that has been enshrined legally. That would be my hope, and, from what I have read, there is strong expert opinion that some provision can be made to continue those arrangements, given the different legal standing of Ireland and the UK in the free travel area.
I think I read in one of your questions about the idea of having British controls or immigration checks in some form in Ireland as well. I assume that would be politically sensitive, but on the other hand I would assume, if it is elite-driven, there could be leeway, depending on how it is implemented.
Dr Paul Gillespie: A lot of technical co-operation goes on. The shared visa arrangements, for example with the Chinese, illustrate that. The initial Guardian story was greatly overstated according to the information in the Irish Times. It is more an elaboration of existing arrangements, which are quite strong, than a new regime which would put British personnel in Irish ports, which would not be acceptable. It does not address all the issues and it would be symbolically and politically unacceptable.
Professor John O'Brennan: The reaction to the story was very interesting. One reaction common across social media was, “Well, the United Kingdom got itself into this mess. Please do not rely on us to get you out of it”. There was a bit of that in posts.
Like Paul, I think this is probably exaggerated. If we think about EU migration to Ireland and the UK, it is highly unlikely that migrants will try to get into the United Kingdom illegally from Ireland. EU migrants tend to be rather better educated than our indigenous population and they have no interest in that. I suspect that within the British Government that does not constitute much of a fear. It is non-EU migration that constitutes the issue. As Paul suggested with China and India, there are frameworks in which the two countries could manage those kind of things rather more easily than the Guardian piece suggested.
Q91 Lord Jay of Ewelme: I want to focus on the border between North and South. There has been quite a lot of talk about the need, particularly if Britain is outside the customs union, to have some sort of customs border or some sort of border between North and South. One rather techie question is, do you think that can be managed by having some sort of electronic border or selective examination or checks outside the border area?
A broader question comes from something we heard in the evidence we had from Mr Brokenshire a couple of weeks ago. He gave the impression that not having a hard border between North and South was so important that that, in a sense, would be the objective, and therefore they would try to find ways to ensure that it would not happen. I wondered whether you thought that the issue was so important that that was the right kind of approach. It is a technical question and a more general one.
Dr Paul Gillespie: I am not competent on the technical question. People who know talk about it, and I would be very interested in what they are saying. It is superseded, however, by the political question. The political question is also the European question, because if you are outside the customs union the imperative from Brussels and the Council of Ministers will be that there are robust arrangements to make sure that the customs union is not breached. Working backwards from that, people are saying that outside both the customs union and the single market there will have to be some robust regime. Dublin knows very well that it has to be one that is acceptable in the multilateral EU setting. I cannot see that that is to be avoided out of the good will we have built up over a number of decades. That is the problem we have, politically.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: That puts a huge amount of weight on the Irish Government, because it is a question of trying to persuade the other 26 to agree to something that is necessary for Irish reasons but which will not necessarily be easily accepted by the 26.
Dr Paul Gillespie: Without going on too much, the Government have put a strong emphasis on the uniqueness of the Northern Ireland settlement. The asymmetric shock issue is one side of things. In addition, there is the uniqueness argument. It is to do with a violent conflict and a peace agreement, into which the EU bought as a peace actor itself, and quite heavily funded. If you can establish that argument for uniqueness, you strengthen your bargaining hand in the multilateral setting, it seems to me. They are right there. Going to the second part of your question, that is playing into the politics. It differentiates Ireland and Scotland, for example, which is interesting.
Dr Etain Tannam: I very much think a special case could be made based on the EU’s interest. It is not just an Irish interest. It is peace, which is part of the EU’s original rationale.
The Chairman: Within those thoughts I ask Baroness Browning to ask her question.
Q92 Baroness Browning: We have probably covered a lot of it. I was going to ask you about the changing situation post-Brexit. The common travel area predates either country’s admittance to the EU. Picking up on what Paul has just said, we heard quite a lot yesterday in Stormont about the EU buy-in to the peace agreement and what it had contributed. It was seen as an active player in making sure that it continues. The view in Northern Ireland yesterday was that the peace agreement is an active plan that is ongoing and will need to be ongoing for a very long time. The border issue is at the heart of all this. In order to keep a soft border, given that there is clearly a political dimension in the North that might prefer a hard border, how do you see the way forward?
Dr Paul Gillespie: That is a big one. The hardness of the positions in the North echo to some extent the hardness of positions in London. There is a range between soft and hard; in between is something elastic, which is the differentiated or flexible approach. The harder message coming from the Conservative conference has echoes all around, including among unionists in the North. It has echoes around Europe, as we know.
This is being played out. I do not know where it will end, but in historical relations with Ireland, conservatism and Tory imperial nationalism, and now the emergent English nationalism—those clusters of sentiment—tend to be less favourable towards an Irish outcome, going back to Gladstonian times and over the history. That is something that Irish people are aware of, and the politics feeds into it. It is the small against the large and the weaker against the stronger. The smart game for the smaller and weaker is to know more about your opponent than vice versa.
The Chairman: It is called jiu-jitsu.
Dr Paul Gillespie: Maybe it is a rather roundabout way of answering your question, but I think how it is going to play out depends on the politics of all these islands and of Europe. It is uncertain yet.
Professor John O'Brennan: To follow up, and to link Baroness Browning’s question to that of Lord Jay and Baroness Armstrong, I do not think we can take it for granted that Northern Ireland will end up with some kind of special status; in other words, that our interlocutors among the other 26 will accept those arguments, or accept them in full. In particular, the issue of devolution is linked in many jurisdictions to minority rights and intercommunal relationships. What would there be to prevent Hungary claiming special rights for its significant diaspora population in Slovakia or in Hungary? Looking ahead, one might anticipate problems arising about how we define what special status actually is.
The Chairman: The closer you are to cultural issues, the more sensitive the situation in relation to, for example, education.
Professor John O'Brennan: Yes, and the more dangerous it is.
Dr Etain Tannam: Yes.
Q93 Lord Jay of Ewelme: If you put the emphasis not so much on a special relationship but on the need in the EU’s interest to ensure that there is not a conflict on its borders—what you need to prevent that—you could perhaps get drawn back into the idea of a special status without starting off with that as the objective.
Dr Etain Tannam: Yes.
Dr Paul Gillespie: Yes, absolutely.
Professor John O'Brennan: That is key. That argument will probably win out in the end because the EU’s normative image of itself is so important. Even if the EU was only indirectly involved in the peace process, Northern Ireland stands as a success story. Anything that potentially damages that damages the union at a time when there are very few success stories.
Baroness Browning: From both North and South so far, we have been getting the view—although witnesses such as yourselves and politicians we have spoken to have qualified what they have said across the piece—that the Good Friday agreement is not in jeopardy; everybody is keen to reassure us on that. On the other hand, people realise that there is a certain fragility about how it goes forward. I wonder whether you think that that is the key card to play in the European negotiations.
Dr Etain Tannam: Yes, I would say so, very much linked to that. This is not Catalonia. This is a place where there have been more than 3,000 deaths and where it is fragile. It is not the same situation. The Good Friday agreement is very connected to that. It is an international treaty. It was very carefully crafted. Yes, is the short answer.
The Chairman: If we may, we will ask Baroness Armstrong to chip in with the final question in this area. Then we will go back to some of the economics.
Q94 Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: We wondered if there was anything specific around the peace process and the Good Friday agreement where you thought that attention was needed. Devolution and how it was handled is part of the Good Friday agreement, for example, which I had not thought about much before yesterday, when it was drawn to our attention with things like how the UK Government devolve or do not devolve agricultural payments, which will be a very important test of devolution and the Good Friday agreement. Nationalists were very keen to alert us to their position, and their anxiety in terms of seeing themselves as linked to the Republic was another issue raised yesterday. Is there anything else around the Good Friday agreement that you think we should take into account?
Dr Paul Gillespie: That fragility bears in directly. The power-sharing Executive has only been going since 2007, which is not long; that is half the period. In the border regions, there is a feeling vis-à-vis the strong EU and intergovernmental funding of cross-border co-operation that we are reaching the cusp of a qualitative shift, but it has not quite happened. The intercommunal tension is very much still there. There is a fragility that necessitates continuing funding, continuing political attention, institutionalisation and special arrangements. There is a similar strong argument coming out of the uniqueness case. I am hopeful enough about achieving that, but the funding one is tricky. You have to convince London, Brussels and Dublin to do that.
The Chairman: We will come back to that. While your two colleagues formulate their response, I will mention that yesterday Colum Eastwood, on behalf of the SDLP, told us, “The impact on the nationalist psyche is tremendous and will get worse”. In a sense, this is about the psychology rather than the formal expression of interest. In formulating your response, could you comment on that point, too?
Dr Etain Tannam: The Good Friday Agreement is central to creating that reassurance. One of the cornerstones of British-Irish policy since the 1980s has been to reassure nationalists. The Good Friday Agreement/the Belfast Agreement, is central to that. It is possible that the institutions provided for the North-South dimension and the South input may need to be strengthened and made more robust. The agenda may need to be expanded, but I think that is the correct forum and that is where that reassurance should be provided, because there are so many institutions in the GFA that would allow it to occur. It is an issue.
Professor John O'Brennan: Certainly, it is something that I have encountered in my interactions with nationalists from Northern Ireland over the last while. There was always a sense during the Troubles that the nationalist community in Northern Ireland was rather isolated, as much from Dublin as in its position within Northern Ireland. That has changed very significantly as a result of the peace process. It arises again not least because there are people to the left of the SDLP who have used Brexit to resuscitate the idea of a united Ireland, something that frightens a lot of people in Dublin. This sense of isolation might actually be enhanced if the Dublin Government are perceived to be defending their own interest rather than that of their people plus the nationalist community in Northern Ireland.
The Chairman: Putting it in rather simplistic terms, unless I am wrong, the nationalist community in Northern Ireland has had the assurance not only of access to Irish passports if they wanted them but that while they were resident in the UK as a member state they had a common European citizenship. Now they will not have that bit of the option. It points the issue for them a bit more intensely, does it not?
Professor John O'Brennan: Yes, it does, absolutely.
The Chairman: That is really helpful.
Q95 Lord Whitty: There is also the issue of the Protestant psyche in Northern Ireland. Any solution of special status that implied that Northern Ireland was less part of the United Kingdom than it currently is has the opposite reaction. That has to be taken care of, too.
The Chairman: There was a vote in the Assembly yesterday in Northern Ireland on this point.
Lord Whitty: Indeed, yes.
Professor John O'Brennan: As you were meeting.
Lord Whitty: Unfortunately, we did not hear the debate, but it was very much present. There is the opposite effect. Already, the constitutional role of the Republic in the North as a result of the peace agreement is resented there. If special status means something moving Northern Ireland more away from the United Kingdom, that will be a problem. That was a comment. I do not necessarily expect you to answer that.
The Chairman: Can we capture your assent to that comment?
Dr Etain Tannam: Could I make one response? I think there have been changes in unionism. From the research I have done and from talking to people, there is a pragmatism that perhaps was not always there in the past. If something was flagged up as a big constitutional settlement, that would be difficult, but a more pragmatic arrangement might be reached.
Dr Paul Gillespie: There is new research from John Garry and John Coakley showing the pattern of the vote.
The Chairman: It would be useful if you could reference that to us.
Lord Whitty: The unionist votes will be interesting.
Dr Paul Gillespie: The thing to watch is the impact of this over the next five or 10 years on interests. Unionist sentiment, which is somewhat differentiated, will shift according to interests, including in agriculture. If there is a hard Brexit with a deteriorating standard of living, attitudes will change, including attitudes towards a united Ireland.
Q96 Lord Whitty: That brings me to my economic question. Originally, Paul differentiated the economic aspect. My question is: what do you think the impact will be on the various economic and social sectors both sides of the border? Are there ways of mitigating that?
The Chairman: We will hear from them, but it is useful to hear from a political scientist.
Dr Paul Gillespie: Agriculture is a big one. I wonder what is going to happen to the FDI, corporation tax stuff. A lot of the libertarian economic logic of Brexit would be to bring taxation down for the UK as a whole. That is a competitive aspect, of course, from the Irish point of view, but it undermines the attractiveness of the North in a comparative UK setting. That is part of the medium to long-term interest that I see.
Do not underestimate the pragmatic streak in the DUP. It is materialising now in the North/South Ministerial Council discussion. It has materialised in all-Ireland policy approaches in certain sectors that are non-threatening to its political identity. You will probably see a working out of that; you certainly ought to see it. Research and argument, and better contact between North and South, should help that along.
The final point is that the nationalists expect the Irish Government to give voice. You will also find sotto voce some unionist support for that from the pragmatic wing of unionism, but maybe I am wrong.
Dr Etain Tannam: It seems there will be a differential impact on different sectors. Along the border there is a lot of trade among small farmers and small-sized industry. That would be hit, from what I have read, unless there are arrangements to make it easier. Even between Britain and Ireland the agrifood trade is strong.
Lord Whitty: In both directions.
Dr Etain Tannam: In both directions. Again, there would be an impact economically. It depends on the different sectors, definitely, but in agriculture, yes.
Lord Whitty: Once Europe goes, and the CAP goes from Northern Ireland, the automatic effect is that agriculture is a devolved issue. It is possible, as somebody implied earlier, that Whitehall will want to pull that back. I see no great appetite for Whitehall to do that. There is the possibility of an all-island agriculture understanding, and there are other areas where there is already the beginning of an all-island policy approach to markets, such as the energy market. Do you think that would go further?
Dr Etain Tannam: On issues like food safety, there would have to be an all-Ireland approach and they would probably meet EU standards.
The Chairman: And in the animal health sector.
Dr Etain Tannam: Yes.
Professor John O'Brennan: I have two points in response. First, Brexit might have the effect of increasing the rural/urban divide in Ireland. In a lot of the sectors that are most affected, including agrifood, there are about 94,000 jobs in total, and 94% of those jobs are located outside Dublin. On the other hand, one of the big beneficiaries might be the International Financial Services Centre in Dublin, which might attract displaced investment of different kinds, and financial and other services, from London. That is contingent to different degrees, but you might see this already existing divide. It manifests itself in general elections and in other fora, but it might be increased. The most vulnerable area is certainly the border and midlands region. You have to ask whether the negotiation should include special status not just for Northern Ireland but for the cross-border region. That activity might be enhanced.
The Chairman: Of course, there is machinery for that now, as we heard yesterday.
Professor John O'Brennan: Yes. I leave aside the macroeconomic issues that I am sure Dan O’Brien and other people will focus on in the next session. They are much more qualified to talk about those.
The second really interesting thing for me is the whole issue of tax justice. I link this to the first comment I made about what happens to Ireland in the Council. Because of the Apple case and others, tax justice has become important within the European Union. Ireland is at the centre of that. There is no doubt that although there are no permanent alliances identified in the Council on tax, trade and competitiveness—member states tend to align with each other in respect of different policy issues—Ireland and the UK have been very close partners. You have to ask about the Government’s capacity to defend their interests on tax in the Council subsequent to Brexit.
I disagree fundamentally with the Government’s position. It is unconscionable that we allow multinational corporations to behave in the way they do, but from the Government’s perspective there are enormous challenges to be faced. We will have to realign our diplomacy to very important degrees to defend those economic decisions.
The Chairman: We are ticking up to what is at least the nominal deadline. Can you spare us another 10 minutes? I am conscious that we have a following session. The next question is from Lord Selkirk, on what might be termed the EU feed-in to infrastructure, et cetera.
Q97 Lord Selkirk of Douglas: My question to a large extent has been answered already. I get the impression that there are a lot of different issues simmering under the surface, any one of which may suddenly come up the agenda. All Governments, even devolved Governments, have to be ready to deal with a changing situation. My question is on the effect of Brexit on Northern Ireland as a whole and the border region in particular. We are very well aware that Treasury guarantees from the British Government have been given to Northern Ireland with regard to infrastructure projects up to the year 2020. If you could give us a picture of what you think should be done after 2020, it would be very helpful. Do you have any views on the continuing infrastructure projects—the A5 western corridor, the Ulster canal and narrow water bridge and the north-west gateway initiative? If I may say so, what has happened means that we present a test case in Europe. A lot of these issues have not been specifically dealt with before in the form in which they are likely to be raised.
Professor John O'Brennan: Briefly, it seems to me that one of the many perverse and unintended consequences of Brexit might be to increase Northern Ireland’s dependency on London. I do not think that is very welcome. The export performance of Northern Ireland has improved, but it is still very much in the shadows of the Republic. I do not see much within the mooted arrangements that might emerge from this that would change that. Looking at CAP, if spending becomes devolved but nevertheless the responsibility of London, it might not necessarily be to the advantage of Northern Ireland in the longer term. There is a whole set of issues that crystallise around dependency. Where devolution should encourage the opposite, it might have that perverse effect.
Dr Etain Tannam: There would be a real fear. Ideally, the UK should replace CAP and it has promised to do that to an extent until 2020, but we hope that will continue for Northern Ireland. There is a block grant , so even if there is devolution it will come from a fixed sum of money. That is one priority that will be a worry, I am sure.
Regarding other aspects, such as the flagship cross-border schemes, I am sure the Irish Government will be lobbying for them. I assume, and hope, that the British Government will have a commitment to continue and develop those schemes. John Bradley, an economist who has worked in this area, has in the past stated that the amount of money proportionately in these schemes is quite small. To an extent they are symbolic. A lot of them are important, but their economic significance should not be exaggerated. It is to be hoped that they will continue and that more will be added, and that there will be a British-Irish commitment through the Good Friday/Belfast agreement to do that.
Dr Paul Gillespie: Post-2020 is a very significant question. The big question is whether London is willing to continue to pay the price of political union in the UK, for example vis-à-vis agriculture, which is a big-ticket item, but there are many others. The point about the perverse effect of increased dependence is a very good one. In my understanding, it links to a kind of macropolitical point. What is the impact of this on interest in the North of Ireland? It is not surprising that Irish unification, which was very much a Sinn Féin agenda, has now been broadened. Enda Kenny spoke about it. Micheál Martin spoke about it. It is now much more on the agenda. It needs an awful lot more research. It needs to be delicately and sensitively handled, of course; we saw that in the vote yesterday. This is a period of flux. If you end up with a reconfigured UK, it seems to me that it would have to be somewhat more federal. It will open up that question not only for the North but for Scotland as well.
The Chairman: Thank you. A wide question. I will ask Lord Whitty to ask the final substantive question and bring in the police and security issue.
Q98 Lord Whitty: It is about the impact of the change in status on security and police co-operation at the border, and the sharing of evidence and intelligence generally. Do you see that as a problem if the status of the border changes in some way, as almost inevitably it will even if there is no physical border?
Dr Etain Tannam: I have been thinking about that. Security co-operation was not strong until the 1980s. That was one of the priorities in the Anglo-Irish agreement. The EU did not create security co-operation. Of course, we did not have a free travel area and we did not have a hard border so that is a big issue, but I think there will be a commitment to security and policing co-operation, regardless of Brexit, between the British and Irish Governments.
The Chairman: Is that agreed?
Professor John O'Brennan: We should remember that there have been extraordinary changes in the justice and home affairs area in the European Union. There has been a considerable deepening of integration, so that much of what was considered previously as exclusively national or shared competence has moved to the European level, accelerated by the 9/11 attacks, and the attacks on London and Madrid and so on. There is a big question about that whole area of European law and how it can be transplanted to the bilateral relationship.
The Governments seem quite confident that this can be done, and it is facilitated by the Northern Ireland dispensation and the Good Friday agreement. There are real questions about the efficacy of those arrangements if you move them from the European level back to exclusively bilateral level.
Q99 The Chairman: Before I wrap this up and thank our interlocutors, it would be fair, and helpful to us, to invite you to make any final comments, first of all as to whether we have missed anything. Secondly, given that you have a political science background, would you like to comment on the ability of the Irish Government to handle this, given that they are in a minority and there is a continuing difficult political situation? I comment separately and neutrally that that is true in the United Kingdom as well. That may not be what you want to say, but if you would each like to make a final comment, it would be helpful.
Dr Paul Gillespie: There is quite a lot of cross-party agreement in this area. Notwithstanding the shocks, there is a good lot of preparedness. They have mapped out the work that needs to be done across the parties. They have mapped out the diplomacy required. They have identified the uniqueness issue vis-à-vis the North and signalled that around the European system quite well.
There is a better arrangement between the Taoiseach’s Office and foreign affairs. They have rationalised the structure and it is now more effective at official level. It is a small state with quite a smart system of government. They have learned in this area that high officialdom and expertise will tend to drive any future policy, no matter what happens politically. You cannot quite say, “No matter what”. I was talking earlier about what is happening with the Sinn Féin agenda. Some of these areas are now no longer exclusive to them, and that makes a difference, too.
Dr Etain Tannam: I agree with that. There has been a beefing up of the admin side in Civil Service departments, especially in foreign affairs, and I am sure equivalently in the UK. A small state has fewer priorities. The UK is faced with a quagmire of negotiations, whereas Ireland will prioritise this so that it can concentrate resources.
Professor John O'Brennan: One issue that has not been raised—here I will be quite partisan and put on my academic hat—is the future of higher education relationships in these islands. This is really important to us. We have already seen a lot of negative developments in relation to the UK’s research capacity. In particular, key partners in Horizon 2020 and other European research framework programmes are being frozen out of very useful programmes. I have chaired some of those committees in Brussels. Certainly in the social sciences, UK universities have been absolutely critical as key partners in consortia. There is a real question mark over that. For Irish universities, these relationships are crucial. I hope that in your further discussions and analysis, and in what you are saying to government, you will stress the importance of that.
It also applies to teaching. The Erasmus framework has been hugely successful. Three million people have gone through it; 1 million Erasmus babies have been born over the last 30 years or so as a result of this wonderful and varied integration. Paul might call it variable geometry. There are real fears about uncertainty for UK students studying in Ireland, to limit this to the bilateral, and for Irish students going to Britain. Again, I hope that we see some very serious work to flesh out those issues.
The Chairman: To wrap up this session, I assure you that the Chairman of this Committee, as a former higher education Minister, takes a close interest. We have demitted the front-line responsibility to colleagues in the Science and Technology Committee in the Lords, who are not in our structure. They are very concerned about it and will follow it closely. We certainly want to hear if there are any washback effects on Irish higher education institutions from the difficulty you identified.
Beyond that, I want to say how much we have appreciated your three contributions, Paul, Etain and John. They have helped to fill this out. I hope you will feel, in the words of TTIP, which we have not discussed today, that this is a living relationship. We are more than delighted both to receive any information you want to draw to our attention as the academic work proceeds and to keep in dialogue with you. The session has fleshed things out in a very helpful way. It is a very good start to the day.
Our next panel is in the slips raring to take over. I remind colleagues that we will adjourn this session formally. We will not invite the gallery to be cleared, so remember, colleagues, that we are on the record while the gallery is present. We will demit one panel, thanking them. I am sorry that the terrible geography of this room makes it difficult to thank you personally, but you are more than welcome to keep in touch and to see us whenever you are in London.
