Victor Boyhan Urges Caution on EU-UK Youth Experience Scheme

Thank you. I firstly want to congratulate you on your election here today to the job of Lasker Herlich and I hope you enjoy it and well deserved. I particularly want to thank you Minister, we know each other a long time, I know your extended family a long time and it's great to see you in the chair as Minister for Justice and Home Affairs and clearly vast experience, vast knowledge and I think it's great that we have someone from Dublin as well, particularly with the enormous challenges that we have in our city. We challenge us everywhere but we have enormous challenges in Dublin and so I genuinely want to wish you well and I know you'll do an excellent job. Today, members and Minister, there is a motion before the Shannet and that the Shannet approves authorising the opening of negotiations for an agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on Youth Experience Scheme, a copy which was laid before the Shannet on the 10th of February 2025. I've taken the time to look at that and also to examine the debate in the Dáil in relation to it and I hear very much what you're saying, Minister, there was clearly no dissension amongst the five, four or five speakers, that's all there was. But I think it is worth pointing out some of the background around this issue and so therefore I took the time to look at the library reports in Westminster and to see some of the debate coming from the other side of the water in relation to this matter and I want to share some of those points with you here today because I think we need to be conscious of it. I sit as does Senator Clifford Lee on or have been sitting on the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly and we have a very strong working and respectful relationship with all the various members of that and I think from that you learn about other experiences and other dimensions in relation to the North, South, the Great Britain, the whole relationship which is fundamentally important to both Britain and to Ireland. The European Commission formally proposed that the EU seek to negotiate a youth mobility scheme with the United Kingdom in April 2024. The Commission has proposed to the EU Council to open negotiations with the United Kingdom on an engagement to facilitate a youth mobility scheme. Such an agreement would make it easier for EU and UK citizens to study, to work and to live in the UK and the EU respectively. The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU was as resulted in decreased mobility, that's a fact, a decreased mobility between the EU and the UK and this situation was particularly affected the opportunities of young people who want to experience life on the other side of the channel and to benefit from youth, culture, education, research and training exchanges. The proposal seeks to address and in an innovative way I believe the main barriers to mobility for young people experiencing today and create the right of young people to travel from the EU to the UK and vice versa more easily and for a longer period of time subject of course to conditions. The European Commission proposal was rejected by the then Conservative government. SUNAC rejected the offer of a youth mobility scheme between the EU and the UK for a number of reasons. The UK Labour then in opposition also turned down the European Commission's proposals which would have allowed young Britons to live, study and work in the EU. UK Labour said that the youth mobility schemes were synonymous, quote, synonymous with the freedom of movement. The now Labour government has reiterated that it has no plans for a youth mobility scheme with the EU and will not return to UK EU freedom of movement. Reports at the end of 2024 indicated that the EU was seeking to refine the proposals as a youth experience scheme as you touched on, Minister, to a cultural exchange programme. When you delve into that, another series of questions emerge. In evidence to the House of Lords European Affairs Commission in December 2024, just three months ago, the Minister of the EU Relations, Nick Thomas-Simmons, said that it was up to the EU to finalise any proposals it wanted to place on the table and that the UK's response would depend precisely on what was meant by an EU youth mobility scheme. Progress will require a mindset that focuses on how to improve relationships and not on refighting the old Brexit battles. For many in Westminster, the language of free movement seems to present major problems and is exceptionally sensitive. And again, you touched on that, Minister, and I think it was important. I looked at a statement that was issued when the Thonister now was then Minister at the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research and Innovation and Science, which is on the government website. And he talks about finalising arrangements with Northern Ireland, as our previous Senator has spoken about, in terms of the education institutions. And there was a suggestion that during the course of the UK, he said, and I quote, during the course of the UK withdrawal from the EU, the loss of access to the EU's Erasmus Plus education programme was highlighted by civic society as a major concern for current and potential students and staff of higher education institutions in Northern Ireland. The government agreed to put arrangements in place, and rightly so, to maintain access for Northern Irish higher education students to mobilities across Europe. This fund fulfils that commitment as long as that fund is in place. And therefore, I think we need to look at that, particularly closer to home, the funding that facilitates the movement of our people on both sides of this island. While the funding was directed for the mobilities access to Europe, there is a major north-south dimension. And I don't think we need to lose sight of this, as more than 20% of those taking place in Ireland, you know, seek internships, etc. in financial services, and indeed in the IFSC, that you'll be very familiar with. Minister, in closing up, I think it's important that some in the UK are trying to make the case for bilateral deals. That is not solidarity in its best form in terms of Europe. We cannot permit or support or agree with one-off picking off various European member states for different deals. Clearly, looking at the reports and the debates in Westminster, it's clear that's an option that the British government want to pursue. Pursuing an agenda of individual deals, one EU member state against the other at any time, is unacceptable, as far as I am concerned. EU solidarity, equal treatment, equal opportunities of all member states is key to cohesion and something that we must strike hard in any negotiations. EU member states need to maintain a united front in all talks with the British government. The British government might not be interested in an equal deal with each member state, hence their argument on the option of bilateral deals and bilateral options. I firmly think we need to rule them out. I support this motion. I support your work. As you've said clearly, this is just to enter into negotiations. I finish by saying, Minister, thank you for coming to the House, recognising the importance of the role of both the Dáil and the Shannon clearly in these matters, and I would ask that you would keep us informed on a regular basis as this matter progresses. Thank you.