 an agenda of thought leadership in this country, particularly in Ireland's place in the world. So naturally, right now, this is a very interesting time to take up this position. And I just want to describe briefly what we do. 80% of our work is our speaker program. So we have, as I said, distinguished panelists here from all over the world to provide their perspective, provide context for policymakers. It's really great to have them. And 20% of what we do, as you'll have seen as you walked in, is our research program, our papers that we produce and policy options for decision makers. And we don't want to overstate the role that we play, but we believe that we play a very important role in the robust and open democracy in Ireland. But what we don't want to be is an echo chamber. We want to provide an open platform for diverse views. And we have achieved that, I believe, very successfully over the years. We don't want to simply hear the same voices all the time. We want to hear diversity within this room. And that is critical for our reputation. It's critical for our independence. We are honored to have a very distinguished board here at the Institute. And Catherine Day joins us here, who will be on the first panel, Mary Cross and others who are on our board. We also have John Brutten on our board, Brian Cowan, Pat Cox, Patrick Honohan, Frances Ruan, Anna Weir chaired by Rory Quinn, and Peter McClune, I see in the corner, and Connor Brady, who will also be chairing one of our panelists this morning. Finally, one last point I wish to make is on our funding. We are funded by our members exclusively. One myth I would like to dispel is we do not have any EU funding here at the Institute, which isn't to say we wouldn't like to have EU funding. We simply don't have EU funding. We don't have any Irish government core funding either. Some of the government departments are our members. So we rely on our membership for our funding, and I think that contributes in no small way to our independence and the reputation we've built up over 30 years. So with that, it falls to me to introduce Declan Keller to make the opening remarks this morning. As I said, Declan Keller is the Irish permanent representative to the European Union and has been retained there for a further period for various obvious reasons. He's former ambassador to China, and he was also the ambassador to the EU Political and Security Committee and has a very industry perspective in that regard too. So with that, ladies and gentlemen, hand over to Ambassador Keller. Thanks Barry for those very warm words of introduction. I didn't recognise myself for a minute, but Barry has said who I am. I'm the permanent representative Ireland. Let me just briefly, for the benefit of everybody here, explain what I am and what we do at the permanent representation. Essentially, the permanent representation is Ireland's largest overseas mission. It is an all-of-government platform. Every government department is represented in the permanent mission. And we are in the front line, if you like, of promoting, protecting, pursuing, and pushing forward Ireland's interests in the European Union. We do that through the development of close links with the European Commission, with the Council Secretariat, with the European Parliament, and the range of institutions, and of course the delegations of our fellow Member States. Every Member State has a permanent representation like ours. The mission of the representation is essentially, as I say, to protect Ireland's interests. It's a negotiating job. It's a Ferrero Rocher-free zone, if I could put it like that. And we are deeply and umbilically linked back, in the first instance, to the Taoiseach's office, to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and of course to the departments, all departments of Finance, Justice, Agriculture, who have business in the European Union. I say that just to give an introduction to where we are on Brexit. I just say that it's just over a year ago since the British referendum took place, and the preparations at government level, across government, have been taking place intensively even before that date. The aims have been twofold in the broadest analysis. First, to ensure recognition of the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland by our partners in the EU, by the EU institutions. And secondly, to hardwire our issues into the thinking and activities of the EU institutions and of our EU partners. And I think it's fair to say that that, we're in a very preliminary phase, that has gone well. In addition to, we have been contributing to EU thinking on the future of Europe, because as a distinguished journalist who's sitting here in the third row said yesterday, we shouldn't only look through Brexit goggles. There is a process going ahead on preparing and equipping the European Union for the post-Brexit situation. So what have the results been? In the first instance, our issues have been prioritized, and there is a recognition, and it's there in concrete terms, that resolution of the core Irish issues is of paramount importance to the whole of the withdrawal process. And secondly, there is a commitment to imaginative and flexible solutions. Now, as I say at home, there has been and continues extensive coordination and internal analysis, and an extremely sophisticated communication strategy too as well, which I think has been very effective with our EU partners. Abroad, ministers have engaged very intensively with their EU opposite numbers, a political and also an official level. And in Brussels, we worked very closely with the Council Secretary yet to bring forward the guidelines, and the guidelines for the negotiations were approved by the European Council, that is to say the heads of state and government, of the 27, not including British, on the 29th of April. Following that, a slightly more operational version of the guidelines called the Directives was approved at ministerial level towards the end of May. And I think it's worth just for calling, because people talk about status, people talk about what you're going to call the solution in Ireland. But as the Taoiseach said in Brussels last Friday, what matters is what's in the tin, not what's written on the side of the tin. And the ingredients are, if you like, absolute respect for the fabric of the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts, a paramount importance of protecting the achievements, benefits, and commitments of the peace process, recognition of the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, and in consequence of that, the need to have flexible and imaginative solutions, the need to avoid a hard border, and also in the Directives, which I said was a slightly more operational version, is full respect for the common travel area, and also awareness of the challenges posed by transit and trade issues more generally. So that's where we stand, plus one other thing, the European Council has approved a statement which says in the event of the Good Friday Agreement procedures leading to unity, then the territory of such a united Ireland would automatically be a member of the European Union. I just digress in that briefly, think back 27 years to the unification of Germany, and in a sense there's a parallel with that, the process for an enlarged Germany maintaining its seats at the UN and the European Union. Now, a unified Ireland is not something for the short term at all, but it was important just to ensure that that potential uncertainty was addressed. I also would say, because I've seen in the media the view that it was not important, it's actually very important, and also when you consider that 27 years ago the Germans had on their side, one, the German unity was a matter of geopolitical importance, which Irish unity is not a matter of global geopolitical, it's not a global geopolitical issue. Second, Germany was occupied and there was a new treaty which basically supervised the withdrawal of the occupying powers. Third, four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council were those occupying powers. So the German situation was different, but it was also a useful parallel and a useful model. The negotiations started just, I think exactly a week ago, if I'm not mistaken, and they've started in a reasonably benign way. The British have changed their position, softened their position on sequencing, softened their position on the cycle of negotiations, also have been more explicitly supportive of transition. And all of these are elements that are important to Ireland because what we want to see is a post Brexit snapshot of the relationship between the EU and the UK, which is as close to the pre-Brexit snapshot as possible. Our issues, and again, this is at our request, are not going to be considered in one of the working groups. The working groups are going to look at the financial settlement, citizens' rights and some administrative issues. The Irish issue is an issue of fundamental importance and will be dealt with at a higher level. I won't go into the details of the various new bodies that have been set up on the side of the council, that is to say all the member states of the EU in Brussels, but just to say that my committee, the Committee of Ambassadors, will be weakly involved in this. We have set up a working group to look and prepare specific sectoral areas. Mr Barnier will report systematically both to the Committee of Ambassadors, to the working group, to the Council of Ministers, and to the European Council, the heads of state and government. And it is an extremely close and very positive relationship. I just want to emphasize that that the Irish concerns are absolutely understood and we maintain daily, twice thrice, four times daily contacts with the Barnier Task Force and with President Tusk's people. The sequence will probably, if things work well, we will have a series of four monthly cycles of work before the October European Council. At some stage around then, the European Council will have to decide whether sufficient progress has been made to move to the second phase. And the second phase concerns the framework of the future relationship and that will be issues such as trade and what possibly the eventual landing zone might look like in terms of an agreement between the EU and the UK. From an Irish perspective, we are flexible on this. We want to see a quick move to the second phase because we do not want the negotiations to get stuck and we certainly want to see a harmonious relationship in due course. That is, however, let me emphasize that our points are very important to one of the three key issues and we will want to see progress in the first phase on that. I think that's what I would just say now, Barry, just to set the scene. One thing, and I say it because I'm sure it'll come up in subsequent discussion, our goal is to avoid a hard border. Our goals are obviously to protect the single market. We want a close agreement with the UK, but we do have a series of uncertainties and the uncertainties there, I mean, one uncertainty is in Belfast. It's the fact that we don't have an executive and the importance of this, let me give an illustration of this. Last October, the late Martin McGinnis and Arlene Foster sent an extraordinary clear and well-argued letter to Theresa May which set out the position of the Northern Ireland Executive. Without an executive, we can't rely on the same focus coming from within the parties, within the system in Northern Ireland. We want to see the executive up and running and as quickly as possible. Secondly, I'm not going to talk about the supply and confidence arrangement between the British government and the DUP. I don't have anything particularly to add on that, but there are two other uncertainties. Number one is the uncertainty in the House of Commons after the election and you hear talk from, you know, remainders and let's revisit things. We should be careful not to speculate too much on that, but the most important uncertainty is the lack of clear focus from the British side themselves at the moment. And I think nobody would deny that, that we don't yet have, I mean, they may have put their first paper in by the time I finished speaking, but we have seen nothing from them so far which sets out what they want and how they propose to achieve it. And let me just emphasize that there's a tendency to assume that, you know, it's for Ireland and for the EU 27 to come up and find a solution as if Brexit was like a shower of rain or a dose of the flu. It wasn't. It was a decision by the British. It was not an Irish decision. It was not an EU decision. And certainly the Irish government has made clear that the British side have responsibilities in this area as well. I think that's where I leave things just as the opening remarks vary and I'm sure my panelists will say far more interesting things, but I just wanted to share those points to set the scene right at the start. Thank you.