hello and welcome to the programme that brings together the foreign journalists who write, blog and broadcast to audiences back home from the dateline london. it s been a convention busting week, this one a queen s speech delivered for the first time in 70 years by a royal other than the queen. two countries strictly neutral for 80 years, preparing to take sides. in northern ireland, a party in favour of reuniting the island of ireland topped the poll for the first time in the centuries since ireland was partitioned. to discuss all that and more, in the studio are brian o connell, former bureau chief in london for the irish broadcaster rte, eunice goes, portuguesejournalist and university lecturer and newly created british citizen, and jeffrey kofman, who s been both a war correspondent and news anchor in canada and the united states. good to have you back with us. jeffrey, let s start with nato expansion. sweden and finland, finland s president, sauli niinisto, said on f
And and that means that. you have a sort of caretaker i administration, civil servants, i outgoing ministers whojust keep the lights on and so on. where northern ireland has probably the longest and the worst waiting lists in the nhs. i they need further investment, education, infrastructure, - all those kind of things, - and the protocol and the checks that come with the protocol. that come with the protocol, even though the majority of members of the new northern ireland assembly actually agreed to live with it, they are hurting small- and medium sized businesses in northern ireland. there s no doubt about that. so there is room for negotiation in terms of, you know, - let s not worry too much about that category of goods, and so, - so on and so forth. and the talks had been l going on for a long time, and then they were paused because of the election -
Hello and welcome to the programme that brings together the foreign journalists who write, blog and broadcast to audiences back home from the dateline london. it s been a convention busting week, this one a queen s speech delivered for the first time in 70 years by a royal other than the queen. two countries strictly neutral for 80 years, preparing to take sides. in northern ireland, a party in favour of reuniting the island of ireland topped the poll for the first time in the centuries since ireland was partitioned. to discuss all that and more, in the studio are brian o connell, former bureau chief in london for the irish broadcaster rte, eunice goes, portuguesejournalist and university lecturer and newly created british citizen, and jeffrey kofman, who s been both a war correspondent and news anchor in canada and the united states. good to have you back with us. jeffrey, let s start
Absolutely. the island of ireland, the republic is in the european union. so it was agreed that the border the uk is physically on the island. the it was agreed that the border would not be between the republic of ireland and northern ireland to safeguard the peace process and the good friday agreement. so it had to be on the irish sea. so that border has to remain there. and the way that the european union sees it is that, well, this was clear. this was clear since the beginning of brexit, they ve been talking about this problem since 2016. the british government signed the northern irish protocol in 2019 and borisjohnson said it was a great deal, a fantastic deal, an open trade deal and said it was fabulous. a fantastic deal, an oven ready deal and said it was fabulous. it sorted all the problems and so on. so what the european union sees is an incredibly bad faith because they signed it clearly with a view to break it soon after. and so they are saying, well, this is a government