Following the recent invitation to submit evidence to the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland Sub-Committee, Civil Society Alliance members were keen to highlight the importance of gathering civil society views on the socio-economic and political impacts of the Protocol. In particular, members expressed the need to highlight the potential effects of any actions taken in relation to the Protocol, including the links between Westminster and Northern Ireland institutions, especially if the Assembly is prevented from sitting longer term.

In our submission to the Committee, we called for engagement to be opened up to a broader forum, ensuring that a wider range of civil society groups have ample opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way. We also stressed the necessity for the Government’s current review of EU retained law to take account of the impact on Northern Ireland.

On 11 August 2022, the Committee published their follow up report highlighting the “urgent imperative for all sides to make concerted efforts to build trust by recommitting themselves to that process of dialogue, repairing the damage caused to relations across these islands during the past five years, in the interests, as the Protocol rightly acknowledges, of communities in both Ireland and Northern Ireland.” (Paragraph 299).