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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 4 Apr 2017

Vol. 945 No. 2

Brexit: Statements

As Deputies are aware, a referendum an EU membership was held in the UK on 23 June 2016. Conscious of its relevance for Ireland, the Government played an active role in advance of the referendum. This included working to ensure a far-reaching agreement between the UK and EU last February, with a view to enabling the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, to campaign for a vote to remain in the EU and engage with the Irish community in Britain, who had the right to vote in the referendum, to ensure they were fully aware of the benefits of EU membership and the implications of a withdrawal. The Government was unambiguous in its view that the UK's departure from the European Union would have significant political, economic and social implications for Ireland. Clearly, therefore, the outcome of the referendum was not what we would have wished. However, we fully respect the democratic decision of the UK electorate.

Well before the UK referendum, the Government had started to analyse the main areas of concern and to prepare a contingency framework. Following the referendum, this work intensified and since last summer there has been very extensive engagement with all sectors across the island of Ireland, including 16 all-island civic dialogue events involving over 1,200 representatives, as well as nearly 300 other meetings with individual stakeholders. Restructuring took place, additional resources were put in place and all Departments and agencies were charged with making Brexit a top priority. There is now strong co-ordination on Brexit at key levels across Government.

Through the Cabinet committee on Brexit, which I chair, and which brings together all relevant Ministers and Departments, there has been a thorough analysis of our concerns, an identification of risks, mitigation measures and opportunities and the development of our negotiating priorities. These priorities are to minimise the impact on our trade and the economy, to protect the Northern Ireland peace process, including maintaining an open border, to continue the common travel area with the UK and to work for a positive future for the European Union. Our approach is to work towards the best possible outcome in the negotiations, maintain a close and constructive economic and trading relationship between the EU and the UK and to continue intensive work to make our economy resilient and future-proof.

We have already taken important steps to repair our economy, including budget 2017 and the Action Plan for Jobs 2017, our new trade and investment strategy. Brexit will, of course, be a critical factor in our longer-term economic strategy. A new ten-year capital programme is in preparation. We are reviewing our 2025 policy to align our enterprise base and policies to reflect new international realities. We are in active discussions with the European Investment Bank regarding a potential increase in investment in the country. In the meantime, the Government's enterprise agencies will continue to work with exporters and potential investors, helping them to deal with issues as they arise, making companies more competitive, diversifying market exposure and upskilling teams.

Last Wednesday, 29 March, as expected, and in accordance with Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union, Prime Minister May formally notified the European Council of the intention of the UK to leave the EU. This means that we have entered a new phase and the two-year exit process has commenced. I was pleased that our particular concerns, including those relating to the Good Friday Agreement, were acknowledged in some detail by Prime Minister May in her letter. This reflected our engagement with the UK, including my meetings with the Prime Minister through the mechanisms set up under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and those established following the 2012 joint statement, while of course respecting the principle of no negotiations without notification agreed with our EU partners last June.

Now that Article 50 has been triggered, we will publish before the end of this month a consolidated paper providing more detail about our priorities and approach to the negotiations ahead. On Friday, 31 March, in response to Prime Minister May's letter, the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, circulated a draft EU negotiating guidelines among the 27 remaining EU Heads of State and Government. These outlined the main issues to be addressed in the withdrawal negotiations and the principles and approach of the EU side. The draft guidelines will be discussed at ministerial and senior official level over the next few weeks, and the 27 EU Heads of State and Government will meet as the European Council on 29 April to agree them.

I am pleased that the draft guidelines include a very strong acknowledgment of Ireland's unique and special circumstances, the need to protect the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement and our intention to maintain bilateral arrangements with the UK, such as the common travel area. It is important to highlight in the House that the resolution on the Brexit negotiations adopted by the European Parliament on Wednesday also contains strong references to our specific concerns. These outcomes bear testament to our programme of strategic engagement over recent months, which has included almost 400 meetings with EU partners and the EU institutions in which we have highlighted, explained and contextualised the unique and special circumstances pertaining to Ireland and the need for these to be addressed in the upcoming negotiations. This programme has included engagement by me as Head of Government, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, other Ministers and our team of experienced senior officials and diplomats.

This engagement has also enabled us to gain a useful understanding of the objectives of other partners and to start to look more closely at potential alliances for the negotiations and more generally for the future. Once the guidelines are finalised, a more detailed negotiating mandate for the European Commission will be agreed by Ministers in May, and negotiations with the UK can then begin. It is important to note that the European Commission Brexit task force, headed by Michel Barnier, will lead the day-to-day negotiations, but the European Council, that is, the 27 Heads of State and Government, will have constant oversight of the process. They will discuss and review the negotiations regularly, revise the guidelines as required and take all final decisions.

As the member state with, arguably, the most at stake, we are fully engaged in this process and are in regular contact with EU institutions and our EU partners. I have just come from a meeting with the President of Croatia, the most recent EU member state. On Thursday, I will meet Chancellor Merkel in Berlin.

Under Article 50, the exit negotiations, which will address issues such as the status of EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens living other member states and the UK's financial commitments to the EU, as well as issues relating to the Border, should be concluded within two years, including time for the agreement to be approved by the European and UK Parliaments. While I believe that the exit negotiations should also include discussions on the future relationship between the EU and the UK, the many complex and important issues involved, including trade, regulatory convergence and sectors such as fisheries, energy and deviation, are unlikely to be resolved for a considerable period of time.

It is my strong view, as I have stressed in my discussions, that a transitional arrangement between the exit agreement and the future relationship agreement will be required to ensure an orderly exit and provide certainty for our citizens and businesses. While we have achieved our goal so far, we are only at the beginning of what will be a very long and difficult set of negotiations. We will need to remain united and focused with a view to ensuring that the unique circumstances of Ireland and its particular concerns arising from Brexit continue to be understood and addressed.

In any objective assessment, it is clear that European Union membership is central to the success of our open, competitive economy and the basis for much of our political and social progress. Our place must remain at the heart of Europe and we will work with all our EU partners as part of the EU team to achieve the best possible outcome. These negotiations are not a case of Ireland versus the UK, Ireland versus the EU or, indeed, the EU versus the UK. Many of our EU partners share our concerns and want to achieve as close a relationship as possible with the UK. For our part, we are determined to maintain our strong relations with both the European Union and the United Kingdom. Despite the regrettable lack of agreement to date to establish an Executive in Northern Ireland, we will continue our process of engagement with a view to ensuring that the negotiations take full account of all-island issues and Northern Ireland. Our Ministers understand the business of Europe and the diplomats and officials who support them have extensive experience of challenging international negotiations. We understand our priorities and have our structures in place. We have strengthened our relations with our EU partners and the EU institutions and we are well prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.

In the days before Prime Minister May formally triggered Article 50, the leaders of the EU's institutions and the remaining 27 member states gathered in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. The declaration they issued was full of pious aspirations but very little substance and it is far from clear that there is a shared concept of what the Union's priorities should be. In his speech to the leaders, Pope Francis took a very reflective and important look at the founding ideals of the Union and its current troubles. He criticised what he termed "today's lapse of memory" which he described as being at the heart of how so many are ignoring the sustained achievements of the European Union. In looking to the future, he stated the following as being especially the case in a time of uncertainty and the exploitation of fears: "Those who govern are charged with discerning the paths of hope – you are charged with discerning the paths of hope". The next two years represent a moment when we will decide the future direction of our country and of the European community of nations and citizens. It is a genuinely historic turning point. The publication of the negotiating documents marks the end of the phoney war and a move to grapple with the substance of the hard, destructive and narrow-minded Brexit with which the British Government has decided to proceed. While this is a matter between UK voters and their government, it should be noted that the form of Brexit which is now under way is very different from what was promised by the majority of "Leave" campaigners. Exclusion from the Single Market and the customs union was dismissed by the prophets of having one's cake and eating it. On this matter, the Article 50 notification marks only the first of many times when claims central to the Brexit campaign are casually abandoned.

As I have already addressed the fundamental issue of the future of Europe in other speeches, I turn to address the focused issue of the situation currently facing Ireland and what we can do in the next month before the negotiations begin. The Article 50 notification letter contains some welcome language on Irish-British connections while the draft EU document also contains important reassurances in relation to protecting peace and avoiding elements of a hard Border. However, on balance these documents are not encouraging and they only address one element of a much larger challenge for Ireland. On the most basic level, it is extremely disappointing that the special circumstances of Northern Ireland have not been properly acknowledged. As I outlined in detail in a speech in Belfast last year, post-2019 there will remain in Northern Ireland 1.8 million people who will be entitled to claim EU citizenship. The frustration of their democratic decision to remain in the EU is an important issue which the British Government refuses even to reference let alone address. However, this is an issue not just for the UK, it is one which should be addressed in the EU’s negotiating mandate. It would be unacceptable if an EU citizen were to find his or her rights within the EU to be compromised in any way following Brexit. Only by explicitly acknowledging this in the negotiating document can there be any hope that the final agreement will deal with it. EU citizenship is something which was loudly and aggressively campaigned against by Sinn Féin and our other knee-jerk anti-EU groupings, but it is now a right enshrined in international treaties and it must be protected. We call on the Government to go back to President Tusk to seek the inclusion of a specific reference in the negotiating mandate to the fact that the EU is conscious of the continued citizenship rights of Northern Ireland residents and will seek to underpin them in any exit treaty. We also believe that a form of special status for Northern Ireland and the Border region remains possible. The deep interlinking of social, economic and cultural ties is unique across any border in Europe. It would be absurd and incredibly damaging if basic supply routes across short distances were to be undermined.

The Article 50 notification included for the first time the possibility that the British Government might seek credible transitional arrangements. This includes the possibility that it would accept the continued role of the European Court of Justice in underpinning dispute resolution and enforcement. This potentially opens the way for a transitional arrangement which is specific to the unique circumstances of Ireland. For example, where traceability can be determined, a lengthy period during which we could operate a separate approach to some customs issues could be sought. In particular, a transitional arrangement specific to Ireland which bridges any gap between Brexit and a permanent trade agreement should be sought. A point which is now inescapable is that we have to establish a new approach to working with the British Government on an ongoing basis. Protecting the many dimensions of the common travel area, including not just employment but also access to health, education, welfare and other services, requires more than a once-off agreement. It requires a permanent and intense working relationship. Currently, we do most of this through common EU policies. Absent these, we need a new forum to ensure our engagement is structured and secure. A new Irish-British agreement dealing with matters other than the peace settlement will be required and we should be progressing it now. Because the British Government has chosen a hard Brexit and will opt-in to the very minimum of programmes, such as Horizon 2020, we know already that we need bilateral negotiations on other areas to define current practice and protect it for the future.

Separate entirely from the Brexit negotiations, the EU needs to develop its own response to ensuring that the impact on member states is minimised as much as possible. The UK Government has already announced a fund to try to move the supply chain in certain industries from EU states to the UK. In effect, it has already fired the starting gun on using direct state aids to poach businesses. Any attempt by the Commission to enforce EU laws in this area would be irrelevant given that such enforcement takes longer than two years. We cannot simply stand by and do nothing, however. At a minimum, we should seek an immediate agreement that member states can take action during the next two years to combat any poaching efforts which are incompatible with current state aid principles. This should include the right to support immediately the sectors most threatened by Brexit's disruption.

Given the extent of the attention it has received in recent days, it is worth noting the controversy concerning the Gibraltar sentence in the EU document. The scale of reaction in London merely confirms how little people there had thought through the implications of last year's vote. There is nothing controversial about the Spanish Government's position and the clause merely acknowledges the concessions made by Spain during its accession negotiations. I welcome the comments of the Spanish Foreign Minister relating to Scotland.

Should Scotland become an independent country and wish to join the European Union, it should be welcomed without delay. It is a modern, liberal and democratic country which has demonstrated how in the modern world a national revival can happen with generosity to all and without any recourse to violence.

The acknowledgement of the Good Friday Agreement in the European Union document removes the need to specify at this stage that Northern Ireland would be immediately incorporated into the EU should a majority vote for unity. This would be similar to the handling of German unification.

Some of the worst of the bombastic complacency heard from London since last June appears to have been replaced by elements of realism. The first sense of the Tories trying to avoid a chaotic Brexit has emerged. What we have not yet seen is a willingness to properly engage with the unique situation of Northern Ireland. Equally, we have not begun the intense discussions required to have bilateral issues addressed in time for March 2019.

In Europe, the approach proposed by President Tusk is reasonable. His openness and the openness of Michel Barnier to Ireland is welcome. Before the final negotiating document is agreed we need to seek an explicit acknowledgement of the EU citizenship of Northern Ireland residents, and we should propose the immediate commencement of a parallel internal process in which European Union states can agree actions to mitigate the worst impacts of Brexit.

Brexit remains an historic mistake, driven by nostalgia for an imperial past and founded on crude attacks on outsiders. There is no beneficial Brexit. It is already causing damage and will continue to do so. For Ireland there has been some progress, but equally we need urgent engagement to address the many serious issues we face but which have, so far, been ignored.

The publication of the European Union's draft Brexit negotiating guidelines demonstrates clearly the failure of the Taoiseach's approach to the threat posed to the island of Ireland by Brexit. D’éirigh leis an Spáinn cros maidir le Giobráltar a bhaint amach. Ba cheart go mbeadh an Taoiseach ag iarraidh a leithéid de ghealltanas a lorg agus a bhaint amach ar son na Éireann. Spain has achieved greater negotiating leverage on the issue of Gibraltar with a veto than the Taoiseach has achieved for Ireland in respect of the North. Article 22 of the EU negotiation guidelines are clear and definitive. After Britain leaves the Union, no agreement between the EU and the British Government may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without agreement between Spain and the British Government. This is the type of veto the Taoiseach should have demanded. Let us be very clear. The British Government is seeking to impose Brexit against the will of the people in the North without any care or consideration of its impact across the island of Ireland. Brexit is bad and will be bad for our economy, jobs and trade. It has the potential to impose an EU frontier on the island of Ireland and undermine the Good Friday Agreement and subsequent agreements.

To date we have heard promises from the Government of an understanding at EU level and a shared approach with the British Government, and a lot of meaningless phraseology about friction-free borders. Citizens in the North have the right to Irish citizenship, and as well as this they have a right to European citizenship, but the letter triggering Article 50 and the EU Council's draft negotiating guidelines contain little that is definitive or helpful to these rights or to the rest of the people of Ireland. The EU draft is vague and conditional, and much clearer commitments are required. There is still time to get these clear commitments and it is the duty of the Taoiseach and the Government to secure them. An explicit commitment for the North to be designated special status in the EU is needed. This is not just the position of Sinn Féin, it is supported by the majority of parties in the Dáil and a motion to this effect was passed in February. Is the Government ignoring the will of the Dáil? It is also supported by the majority of MLAs who were elected in the recent Assembly elections. In the past, the EU has shown itself to be flexible in agreeing pragmatic arrangements for dealing with complex territorial situations. Denmark is an EU member but Greenland is outside the Union. It still receives EU funding. The EU has said there must be an innovative and imaginative approach to Brexit. Is eiseamláir de chur chuige mar seo é stádas sainithe laistigh den Aontas Eorpach.

Last week, a task force of MEPs from throughout Europe visited Ireland at the invitation of my colleagues, MEPs Mr. Matt Carty and Ms Martina Anderson. They saw at first hand the hugely negative impact Brexit would have on Ireland, particularly but not exclusively on the Border counties. They met business, civic, agriculture and other sectors, elected representatives North and South and local communities. They clearly acknowledged the need for the North to secure designated status in the EU. Special status in the European Union is a solution that will allow for the economic prosperity, trade relations and jobs on the entire island to be protected and enhanced together. Despite the talk of no return to the borders of the past, it is obvious that Brexit will see the imposition of a hard economic border on the island of Ireland.

The Government has a huge responsibility to defend the Good Friday Agreement and ensure the frontier between the European Union and Britain is not on this island. Brexit threatens to tear asunder the Good Friday Agreement. The British Government has already committed to scrapping the Human Rights Act and ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and the European Convention on Human Rights. In her letter to the European Council President, Donald Tusk, British Prime Minister, Theresa May, referenced the peace process. She spoke about the need to uphold the Good Friday Agreement, but it is the British Government's refusal to implement past agreements which has contributed significantly to the current political crisis in the North's institutions.

The challenge posed by Brexit must be met with the intensity, urgency and vision that is demanded of this time in our history. This requires a seismic step change from the Irish Government. The Taoiseach must realise, and I think he has yet to realise it, that he has to stand up for the national interests of the people of the entire island of Ireland and that people have an expectation that he should do this. He has a responsibility to articulate and uphold the rights of citizens in the North. They voted to remain. The Government cannot gainsay this vote.

We also want to see the Government publish as a matter of urgency its own negotiating position so it can be debated in the Dáil. If the island of Ireland is to avoid a serious economic crisis arising from Brexit this response must be based on a comprehensive negotiation strategy with clear national objectives to protect citizens, workers and key sectors throughout the island. This means the Government working meaningfully with all political parties and all stakeholders, something they have failed to do thus far. Most importantly, this means the Irish Government must formally adopt the negotiating policy position of designated special status for the North.

Sometimes I cannot hear myself talking because of the back feed from what is obviously a very interesting conversation between the Taoiseach and his colleagues.

Actually, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, was saying Sinn Féin has voted against nine referenda on European issues.

And we were right to do so.

So why do you want to be in it then?

Of course, yes. He was reminding me of that fact.

Would you like us on the opposition on this issue? Is that what you are saying?

We can hear you very well, sometimes too well.

Ná bí ag éisteacht leis an méid atá á rá.

I thank the Acting Chairman. Tá a fhios agam. Tá mórán le rá acu, ach níl mórán á dhéanamh acu.

Anois, a Ghearóid.

Mar a dúirt an seanfhear i mBéal Fheirste, "lean é, ná habair é".

There are actions the Irish Government can take and it has failed to do so. The reason it has failed to do so is it wants to be diplomatically in tune with the fact the Northern state at this point remains part of the British state. The Government dances around all of this, whereas what our Government needs to do is what the British Government does really well, which is stand up for the national interest, meaning the interests of the people of the entire island of Ireland. This is an absolute necessity if we are to ensure we are ready to face into these negotiations and that we are not divided further and reinforce the divisions already reinforced by Britain's exit from the EU.

Special status would ensure that the whole island can remain within the European Union. We call on the Taoiseach to make this case strongly on 29 April. Those 27 states will ultimately decide the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, and the Taoiseach needs to be clear, as leader of one of those states, that he is not going to countenance a land frontier on the island of Ireland.

I listened keenly to the Taoiseach's and the leader of Fianna Fáil's initial responses in the wake of the Brexit vote. They were a bit mesmerised by what the British were going to do and used many meaningless phrases and sound bites. The British Government - the English Government - does not give any attention to, or care for, either the people of Scotland or the people of Ireland, specifically the people of the North of Ireland. What we and our Taoiseach need to do is to take the proposition of a special designated status for the North within the EU and promote and actively advocate for that. That is the way to protect the economies and communities of the island and to minimise the disruption Brexit will cause.

With the formal Brexit process now under way, and no certainty on what the outcome will be, Ireland clearly faces years of uncertainty. The exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union will, as I said previously, present this country and island with the greatest social, economic and diplomatic challenges it has faced since the Emergency. For some time, I have been calling for special recognition of the unique challenges faced by Ireland in the negotiating mandate from Mr. Donald Tusk and the European Council. I want to acknowledge the success of the Government's efforts so far on that aspect of the process. Major diplomatic work went into securing it and I acknowledge that hard work. However, it appears that Spain has also used the framing of the mandate to table political points against the United Kingdom. This is the first of many hurdles we will face, some of which we have not yet become aware of.

From securing the approval of the European Parliament to ensuring Spain will sign off on any ultimate free trade agreement, there is so much that we do not know yet and so much that is outside our control. However, there are some actions the Government can take, through planning and through specific policy initiatives. Last week, the Labour Party published our own Brexit document. Throughout it, we detail the challenges we as a country will face and what we should do about it. It outlines 20 concrete actions aimed at protecting our society, economy and our highly integrated relationship with Northern Ireland. Every party has been talking about Brexit. Fianna Fáil went to the bother of recruiting a new Deputy, so it could appoint him as a specific spokesman on Brexit. Only the Labour Party, so far, is proposing a tangible action plan that would protect Ireland against a hard Brexit. We support the call made by our sister party the SDLP for special status for Northern Ireland. We supported a resolution in this House to achieve that too. It is an absolute requirement that the special status and circumstances of Northern Ireland be recognised throughout the negotiations from the start.

Brexit will fundamentally alter the relationship between ourselves in this part of the island, Northern Ireland, the UK and the EU. It will disrupt trade on the island, and could imperil the peace process. It will impact every sector in ways that cannot yet be determined. It will dominate public discourse for the next decade and present numerous challenges for all of us involved in politics on this island. Many problems will be resolved as they arise, and there are practical steps Ireland can take to outline specifically what we want to achieve, and what we must secure. Nine months on from the referendum, the Irish Government has only outlined in broad terms our objectives for the common travel area, preventing a hard Border, and protecting the peace process. We have yet to see the detailed actions and policy priorities that Ireland wants to see implemented and secured. The Taoiseach informed the House today that will happen before the end of the month. At a minimum, we believe a new protocol to the EU treaties will be required to recognise the common travel area, the Good Friday Agreement, and the unique situation presented by the Irish Border.

Europe must also adapt and we have proposed changes in the Stability and Growth Pact and fiscal rules, along with the implementation of a European pillar of social rights. I attended a meeting of all member parties of the Party of European Socialists in Brussels last week to discuss in detail how the fiscal rules issue can be addressed. Those rules are rigid, opaque and complex. Worse, they stop us from making the vital investment we need right now to prepare ourselves for our future, much less what will happen after Brexit. I raised this on Leader’s Questions last week and I thought I got the support of the Minister for Education and Skills. We now need to see the experience the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan, have be brought to bear to bring about a change in the Stability and Growth Pact. If the Government agrees, then those negotiations should be under way.

We have also said that the €1 billion rainy day fund must be deployed now for investment. We need the infrastructure now. The Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, budget must also be protected post-2020. From an economic perspective, we have grave concerns about trade and employment. A comprehensive EU-UK trade deal must be a priority for Ireland. This will not happen in the next two years, however. In the meantime, a transitional agreement will be essential to maintain our deep and most valuable trading relationship both on the island of Ireland and with our neighbour in Britain. We have also called for a Brexit early warning system to be put in place. Such an all-island warning system would bring together the trade union movement, employers and other stakeholders. It would help to identify sectors and firms that are experiencing particular pressure points and are at particular risk as market conditions change, currencies fluctuate and so on. We are also calling for state aid rules to be suspended for two years from the date of Brexit. With this, a €250 million Brexit trade adjustment fund should be set up to directly support businesses suffering from trade upheaval.

Regional fora need to be established to help to foster and create new jobs, and to protect current ones. These fora could work in tandem with the early warning system I have outlined in order to Brexit-proof our regions. As the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, has dramatically illustrated, the impact of Brexit will not be uniform on the island. There may be benefits for sub-regions like the greater Dublin area. For some regions, like the midlands, the Border, and my own south-east region, it would be catastrophic. The regional action plans for jobs drawn up in 2015 and 2016 are already out of date because of the new circumstances we face. We need a full analysis of the potential and the risk to employment in our regions consequent to Brexit.

In a worst case scenario, with a hard Border between the North and South of Ireland, an arsenal of funding must be available to support those worst affected. It is no good to have rhetoric saying there will be a friction-free Border or no hard Border if Britain is outside not only the Single Market, but the customs union. Some sort of border will have to exist. Let us be practical about how to mitigate the impact. It could be catastrophic if we do not have clear plans for it. We should be very ambitious in what we need to do and begin to discuss it. The current European Globalisation Adjustment Fund, EGAF, programme is now undergoing a mid-term evaluation. Our Government needs to engage with the European Commission for the rules to change.

We also believe that the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs should hold public hearings on the impact of Brexit. I understand the Seanad has now set up its own Brexit committee, the Seanad Special Committee on the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, with Taoiseach’s questions functioning largely as our main way of finding out the thinking of Government and Government strategy as we emerge down the road of Brexit. The Oireachtas needs to speak with one voice, rather than through multiple committees.

We are also concerned at the prospect of the status of the English language being used as a bargaining tool or negotiating point, or even as a political football, before the final agreement is reached. The small spat so far, although we heard one former Tory leader almost launching the gunboats, shows the potential for political point scoring on these matters. Another colleague of his once described him as "a creature of the night". Other issues, such as English remaining as a working language, are important. The current designation of Irish as an official language also has to be protected in that regard. The head of the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee, Danuta Hübner, a person I worked very closely with when she was head of the regional affairs committee when we negotiated the Structural Funds during our own presidency, has warned that English might not be one of the European Union’s official languages once the UK leaves the Union. That might sound like rhetoric, but it is something we must have regard to and address. To remove all doubt, the Irish Government should inform the EU that it also intends to notify English, as well as Irish, as an official EU language. There is no prohibition on having more than one official language. Indeed, many of our EU partner countries have more than one.

There is much to be done. We have to act in concert and with clarity on these matters, and the Taoiseach has the support of my party in supporting Irish interests.

I am sharing time with Deputy Mick Barry.

Deputy Adams said that Theresa May does not care about the people of this island, North or South, and he is absolutely right. Frankly, she does not care about the vast majority of people in Britain, but she certainly does not care about the people here, North or South. She has allowed, and I suspect she will continue to allow, her cynical leaning on British jingoism, little England outlook, racism and anti-immigrant sentiment to trump any concerns about the potential adverse impacts of hard borders between the North and the South. If that is true, and it most certainly is, Deputy Adams and all the others who rightly say we must have no hard border between North and South and that it must be resisted for all the obvious reasons are much more muted in their criticism of the European Union's role in all of this. The European treaties were mentioned. Why do we have no control over whether there will be a hard border between North and South? The answer is that we signed the Lisbon treaty which ceded our rights on those matters to qualified majority voting, such that Germany and France will decide whether we have a hard border.

While we know we have a problem with a British Government that has racist, anti-immigrant, little Englander policies, we also have a major problem with a European Union that has a fortress Europe policy and will insist on borders. The idea that the enemy of our enemy is our friend, which has been peddled by many people in this debate, is simply not the case. The British Government is parochial, nationalistic, racist in its immigration policy and does not care about what happens to people on this island, but so is the European Union. Some 30,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean because they insist on borders, and we will have to fight them and demand that there is no border, North or South. It is their rules around state aid that will prevent us doing the sort of things that would be necessary to insulate our economy against possible adverse effects from Brexit.

We know we have to stand up to Theresa May. Will we stand up to the European Union and tell it that we are just not accepting a border, and that there will be instructions from the Executive in the North, if it exists, and from the Government in the South that we are not co-operating with any border posts and our officials will not man such posts? We should just tell them both to hell with their rules, which are depriving us of our democratic right to set our own borders and to decide our relationships with others. Similarly, we should make our own decisions about what industries and enterprises we can provide support to and aid in order to secure jobs, industry and so on. That is the message that must go out to them if we are to deal with these issues.

From Brexit, Trump and the economic instability across Europe which pre-dates those things, we need to take the big lesson that we must diversify our economy urgently. We do not need to have a strategy which equates to beggar-my-neighbour and see if we can get in some more financial services. To exploit the instability, we need to diversify our economy and to have our own industrial enterprise base, which is indigenous and sustainable in the long term. That is what we need, but that is not what the Government is doing. We require a radical shift in our economic and industrial policy.

Again, it is left to us on these benches to bring an explicitly left and working class perspective to the debate on the EU and Britain’s exit. One unfortunate aspect of the referendum campaign in Britain is that the justified working class anger at the EU on the sound grounds of its neo-liberal and anti-worker agenda did not find expression in the national debate in the UK. Jeremy Corbyn, whose election to the leadership of the British Labour Party we welcomed and whom we still wish well in the struggle against the Blairite wing of that party, made a bad mistake when he put aside his well documented reservations about the EU for the sake of inner party peace, thereby ceding the ground in the national debate to the right-wing, isolationist and xenophobic exit campaign instead of staking out the left progressive case for exit. As a result, a rounded out understanding of the motivations behind the vote, particularly in working class areas of Britain, has been consciously obscured. We should not forget that here too in recent EU referenda both large sections of the urban working class and the rural poor voted "No" to recent treaties. The role of the EU as a driver of austerity here, in Greece and elsewhere, as well as high profile anti-worker judgments by the European Court of Justice, have fed this justified opposition.

In the North, fear of the consequences of a bargain-basement Brexit is being used by the sectarian parties to stir up discontent and create greater sectarian division among the working class. Although a majority in the North voted to remain in the EU, it must be noted and recognised that a majority of Catholics voted to remain and that a majority of Protestants voted to leave. The UK leaving the EU has raised fears among Northern Irish Catholics that a hard border will be an impediment to them achieving their desire for a united Ireland.

Those living in Border communities are rightly concerned that a hard border will impede their travel back and forth to work, school and to visit family. They are fearful that tariffs and custom posts will lead to job losses. The UK leaving the EU raises the potential for Scottish independence and the break up of the UK, which has resulted in greater anxiety among Northern Irish Protestants about their future. The vast majority of working class people in the North do not countenance going back to the conflicts of the past. However, the reintroduction of custom posts and border checks would be a potential target for attack by dissident republicans leading to further instability and the possibility of a return to conflict between loyalist and republican paramilitaries.

No one on this island, North or South, supports a hard border. The political establishment has it within its power to stop a hard border.

It is time for the Taoiseach and this Government to stand up to the EU. The post-UK exit trade deal must be agreed by all 27 EU member states and their parliaments. The Taoiseach should send a warning to the European Commission and Theresa May that this Parliament will veto any trade deal which contains tariffs on trade between North and South. He should tell the Commission that we will not accept a hard Border and put an end to the uncertainty which is causing widespread anxiety and which is increasing instability in Northern Ireland. The exit of Britain from the EU and resulting trade-based conflict do pose concrete dangers to jobs in this State and the cost of living in certain areas, like energy imports. The debate that will therefore confront us is whether the Government will adopt an interventionist approach to save jobs and industries that will be hit, such as agrifoods, and if so what type of intervention. We say that it is correct that the State underpins jobs but not via a mechanism of corporate welfare that will typically benefit the biggest companies, but rather through State enterprise initiatives and anti-poverty measures that will raise domestic demand for the products of industry. Instead of this the greater part of the Government's focus seems to be the luring of financial companies from London to Dublin notwithstanding the fact that the impact, jobs-wise, in Ireland has already been demonstrated as negligible, not to mention the fact that their activities are far less socially useful than the other areas of the economy that are most under threat.

These are precisely the values that will not be championed by the EU leaders or this Government but they are the values that are instinctually supported by many millions of working class people across Europe, Britain and here.

I am sharing time with Deputy Thomas P. Broughan. I acknowledge the preparation done by groups and organisations here, including our public servants. It was difficult because they did not know whether Brexit was going to happen and then, when the vote was taken, they did not know when Article 50 was going to be triggered. It is difficult to prepare for the unknown.

I heard the Prime Minister, Theresa May's words recognising the unique relationship with the Republic and the importance of the peace process in Northern Ireland. However, the UK electorate took an utter gamble with the Good Friday Agreement and there was a lack of thorough investigation and research into what Brexit would mean for the agreement. Whether one agrees with the Good Friday Agreement or not it has ensured peace, ease of movement and no hard Border. A generation of people in Northern Ireland and the Border areas have no memory of having to queue at Border crossings. As a member of the foreign affairs committee and the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, the concerns and anxieties of Border communities and businesses are obvious in the area of agri-food, trade, education culture, sport, health care, transport and retail, not to mention the implications for North-South bodies. While the Good Friday Agreement is recognised internationally and we hear that there will be no return to a hard Border and there will be respect for freedom of movement and the common travel area, there are no guarantees. That raises concerns because if one leaves an organisation or club one cannot expect to enjoy the same benefits or advantages as when one was a member. Everything is amicable at the moment but Ireland cannot get caught in the crossfire between the EU and the UK.

There are unresovled issues from the Good Friday Agreement and there is a real danger they will continue to be left unresolved. I refer to issues relating to flags and parades, legacy issues such as the continuing wait for information on the Dublin-Monaghan bombings, and prisoner issues. These are very serious and continue to deteriorate. Licences are still being revoked, with Tony Taylor being the most recent case. He has been over a year in Maghaberry and he has a date in May for a parole commissioners' hearing, which may happen but is more likely to be cancelled. The stock-take agreement and the work of the International Red Cross in the prison are being ignored and my fear is that, with Brexit, these human rights issues are going to move further down the scale of importance.

Theresa May spoke of the responsibility to ensure nothing was done to jeopardise the peace process but some issues are jeopardising the process and they are likely to be ignored or treated in a high-handed, authoritarian way because we know how fragile peace is. I was very struck by the evidence of a witness from the University of Ulster who was before the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement recently. He had evidence from divided societies everywhere and the conclusion was that the implications of Brexit for identity and cultural issues may be more significant and potentially more dangerous in the long term than the specific economic consequences. His point was that uncertainty about identity and political issues can rapidly escalate into direct confrontation. We need to look at the potential implications for reconciliation and the need for a specific strand to deal with the protection of the Good Friday Agreement. I do not believe for one minute that there is any comparison between Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.

I am involved in official development assistance, ODA, and I am concerned about the implications for that of Britain leaving the EU. The UK has been a major contributor to the EU's development budget and had a role in formulating development policy. Its eligible share of the general budget was €1.23 billion, out of €9 billion in ODA spending, and its share of the off-budget development fund from 2014 to 2020 was €4.48 billion, which will be a significant loss financially and from the point of view of policy. We need to look at the implications for developing countries of financial regulation and taxation practices because Brexit could bring about changes to tax and regulation which have to be examined. There is a real danger that the work of Irish Aid will be undermined. If international business and finance firms relocate to Ireland we have to look at them in terms of tax transparency because we need to reaffirm our commitment to country-by-country reporting and a public register of beneficial ownership.

We raised the question of where Britain stood on the European Convention on Human Rights and were assured by British politicians that Britain would not be withdrawing from it. We have met groups who say there is great potential for Ireland from Brexit.

The Taoiseach referred to the EU negotiating guidelines and to how the negotiations would proceed. Ireland needs direct representation at those negotiations because the sad Brexit decision by the UK is so significant for us. The Taoiseach said negotiations will take place under Michel Barnier and his team, who will report back to councils, but they will not necessarily be responsive enough to the minutiae of negotiations. Our vital national interests are at stake. Countries on the other side of Europe, such as Slovakia and Slovenia, have fundamentally different interests from ours. It is on the line for us as this is the most serious thing to have happened to us since the Second World War so it is not enough to be one of 27, as the Taoiseach suggested.

The team comprises Michel Barnier, chief negotiator, President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker from the Commission and Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the alliance of liberals and democrats. One would wonder how, despite the balmy words of President Tusk, those officials will ensure that Ireland's interests are fundamentally protected when the chips are down. Guy Verhofstadt, for example, is a very strong federalist and an advocate of ever closer union - the kind of point of view that ensured the UK would have a referendum in the first place. Jean-Claude Juncker is associated in this country with the LuxLeaks scandal and President Tusk's own Government wanted to recall him so I am not sure I have that much confidence in them. We have clear evidence that the North-South issues have been accepted at European level. The common travel area has to be maintained because we cannot have the Border back in our country. The president of Sinn Féin argued earlier that all of Ireland must stay in the European Union and I am very sympathetic to that viewpoint.

We do not seem to have got across sufficiently the east-west aspect of these negotiations. I give credit to the Government for the reflections we have seen in the letter of the British Prime Minister, Mrs. May, and also in the response from the European Commission of the importance of Ireland's interest being protected. I give credit to the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, and his colleagues for having achieved that. I also give credit to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and our diplomats.

The nature of our interaction with the island across from us is profound in trade, industry and culture. My colleagues referred to culture and sport. We operate as one area in so many respects. Some 40% of all flights from Dublin Airport are to London, one of the busiest routes in Europe and the world. We have massive agrifood exports to the UK and massive energy connections. We have very fundamental east-west connections. If we ended up with a hard Brexit, we would be facing a total disaster and whichever Government might be responsible to this House would have desperate situation to try to pursue.

We need to ensure that a free trade area is agreed with the UK enabling us to operate as close as possible to the way we operate at present. That has to be our ambition. We need a much more vigorous approach than what the Taoiseach seemed to outline this evening. I feel we should have direct representation.

This has been spoken about as if it was a divorce between people - make the settlement first and then deal with the future. We need to deal with all aspects at the one time. I note that President Tusk seems to be changing his tune on that and has accepted that when issues such as UK payments to the EU and so on are being progressed, there will be fundamental discussion then on the free trade area. These are the most critical issues any Irish Government has faced since the 1940s. I ask the Minister to bear those points in mind.

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this debate. The Europe we joined years ago - many people were in favour of it - was the European Economic Community, EEC. A community in anybody's eyes is a good thing. However, over the years it has changed considerably, some of it good, but an awful lot of it has intruded on the lives of people in different countries. People wonder why the Brits voted to get out. They did so because the ordinary person on the ground is fed up with the rules, regulations and red tape that come from Europe.

It is good that Northern Ireland has been recognised in the document we have seen in the past week on the negotiating position. It is vital that the peace process is kept going. However, we were found wanting in one area. Spain operated like a super-sub coming on at the end to win the game. It jumped in at the last minute and got a veto on Gibraltar, which was a masterstroke. Regardless of what position papers are in place at the moment, if we believe in democracy, the Irish people in one of the most important decisions of our lives deserve a referendum on this. If this goes pear-shaped, it will have serious consequences for us.

I am concerned that if there is no agreement, we will end up with a hard border. Britain can relax regulations, red tape and all that, and it will put British businesses at an advantage compared with Irish businesses. Not having an agreement would have massive consequences for the beef, dairy industry and sheep industries in this country. To put it bluntly, Britain needs our food and we need the British to buy it. If we end up with a hard border, farming in Ireland will be demolished. Ireland will have to face hard questions. Everybody knows London is no more than one day away from a shortage of food and Britain is a net importer of agricultural products. Agriculture is vital to people throughout this country.

The movement of people over and back has to be recognised irrespective of whether the Europeans like it. The British have talked about this. We should look at Gibraltar, Jersey and northern Cyprus. There can be one section of a country - let us say for the sake of argument Northern Ireland - that does not have to be in the European Union and it should be allowed to trade. This is bread-and-butter stuff for us. Many Irish people, especially those from the west of Ireland where I come from, went to Britain and got good work. They have come home and set up in Ireland after a while. Tourism is also ferociously important to this country.

We are like the hurler on the ditch; we are watching the game but we do not know who is playing. There is a guy called Barnier on one side of the table. The talk at the moment is lovely. Everyone is talking about the Border and everyone is talking about Ireland. However, at the end of the day, they will think about the 27. The Taoiseach should go out there and announce to them that we will hold a referendum on this decision even if it puts their noses out of joint. I think the Irish people should have a referendum. If a hard border comes about and we lose the free travel area, and if there are tariffs on our produce, then we are entitled on a referendum to decide what we will do as a nation. We cannot afford to lose the 40% of our agricultural exports that go to Britain. I urge the Taoiseach to do this in the interests of democracy. Europeans might have a lot of unelected representatives doing things for them, but if we believe in democracy, we will give that opportunity to our people.

I am glad to get the opportunity to talk on this very serious and important matter facing our country. At a presentation in Buswells, IBEC informed us this will seriously affect the regions, as it calls them - I call them rural areas and the farming community - but it may not affect areas around Dublin as much. As Deputy Fitzmaurice said, I do not know how we can avoid a hard border, but I hope we can.

We need our best team to take into account all the ways farmers will be affected if we do not maintain the markets we have had up to now, or at least to maintain most of them. The farming industry is at a crossroads. It will be very hard to maintain farming as we know it where farmers were proud to hand down the farm to their offspring and for them to continue to do the same. There will be a burden on their shoulders to do just that. They need every support. We need to maintain trade with the UK.

As other Deputies stated, we will be severely affected if we have a hard border and cannot maintain the free travel area. I do not know how it will be achieved. We talk about Gibraltar and other places but will Europe and England listen? The English people voted to protect their borders. Given that Ireland is open to Europe, will we have people coming here to try to access Great Britain by crossing over the Border? There are many challenges to be dealt with and much work needs to be done. I am asking that our best team goes out and puts its best foot forward to ensure our interests are protected as much as possible in the upcoming talks.

This evening we had a presentation from fishermen. They say that if the UK takes back its waters, European fishermen such as the Spaniards will impinge more on our waters and further abuse the ability of our fishermen to survive in places such as Castletownbere, Killybegs in County Donegal and off the Dingle coast. Those people will have a much harder time if this happens.

An awful lot is involved and much is at stake for our country. As I stated, we are at a crossroads. Farmers are worried that we will lose the UK market. If the UK starts buying food or produce from other countries, farmers' ability to stay on the land will be eroded and rural areas that are struggling to survive will be further decimated. We cannot highlight enough the way farmers and those in rural communities will be hit. As it is, places are very badly hit. Down around the Ring of Kerry, many of the local parishes cannot field a team. They have to amalgamate to put a team out.

Will the Deputy conclude, please?

We are told that the Taoiseach is respected in European circles. We ask him to do his level best to ensure he gets the best deal for the country.

I call the final speaker, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who has just under ten minutes.

At the outset, I wish to mark how sad an occasion the triggering of Article 50 by the UK Government was. In a sense, in that moment it became clear that the UK intended to leave and that our entire union was being undermined. It was a bad day for everyone in Europe as it means a diminished Europe and a diminished relationship between us and our nearest neighbour, with whom we have built up a very good relationship in recent years. That the UK decided to leave our union and take a different course was a day of sadness.

In my mind, it is not necessarily conclusive. There is still political opposition in the UK from the likes of my Green Party colleague, Caroline Lucas, as well as Nick Clegg and others who seem willing to say, "No, we do not agree with this and think it a fundamental mistake" and are looking to see what ways it might be averted. My colleague, Steven Agnew, has joined with others in the UK and Green Party leaders in the European Parliament to test here whether Article 50 is revocable. It is being taken here in order to be able to get to a European court to make a quick decision should that become a viable or desired outcome. I support their case. We are not taking the case ourselves because it has to come from outside the jurisdiction but we support the application as one of the ways available to fight the worst adverse effects of Brexit.

We are examining it because it has become obvious since the referendum almost ten months ago that what is being delivered is a much harder Brexit than anything that might have been expected or articulated during the referendum campaign. A certain section of the Tory Party and UKIP seem to have control of the narrative and the political impetus in the United Kingdom since the referendum. They have steered their Government in a way that rules out the Single Market and effectively rules out, it seems, the customs union, although that is not as conclusive, rules out the Court of Justice of the European Union as an arbitration court and articulates the view that no deal is better than a bad deal. It is becoming increasingly clear the longer the process goes on that no deal would, in effect, be a terrible deal. We all have to try to avoid that because a terrible deal for the UK would also be a terrible deal for Ireland. We would be affected by the downturn in their economy that would happen and in terms of the relationships on this island, North and South. Across the board, it would be hugely detrimental to our long-term interests. Therefore, we have a particular obligation to try to avoid that no-deal scenario.

We are in a sense in opposition. It seems to me that those 70 or so Tory MPs, who seem to be driven by the idea of empires lost and national fervour around independence, are willing to go that no-deal route. It seems they would be happy to end up with a crash in the negotiations that are about to take place and exit the European Union in a manner that would be deeply damaging. We must avoid that outcome. There are also those in Europe, on the other side of the negotiating table, who might similarly think that this is a good way of giving a punitive lesson and teaching the UK a thing or two. We have to avoid their desired outcome. We can and should play a conciliatory, intermediary and positive role in the negotiations to try to avoid those outcomes.

What might that mean? What might our negotiations strategy be? In the coming weeks, before the European Union's negotiating position is absolutely finalised in the end of April or early May, I hope that the Government seeks to start discussions around some of the transitional or other arrangements that would follow on from the final completion of the Article 50 exit process. The Minister of State, Deputy Dara Murphy, made a statement during a debate last week that has been proven true in terms of what President Tusk stated, which is that the European Union wants a lag of three to nine months, or whatever it is, between any discussions about future arrangements before we have the discussion around what the Brexit Bill might be and how UK and EU citizens might be treated in different jurisdictions. He wants, as it were, the divorce arrangements first.

I understand in some ways how that might be a negotiating position to test the water in terms of how the negotiation process might proceed. However, I think it is a mistake. We should be willing to take the initiative and explicitly say not to start this with all the hard ball stuff and the difficult stuff. For instance, how will we make the issue about how much of a bill is to be paid legally verifiable? Who will be the final arbiter of the bill or how it can be legally tied down? That issue is not the most important issue to get right and to debate. There will be some transitional arrangements and the UK will have to pay costs and certain pensions and there will be many other arrangements. However, it is not the fundamental issue at stake and should not be allowed to be come a stumbling block.

We see this week with the issue around Gibraltar and the threat of military support being withdrawn how quickly this can be steered into a direction of negativity and adversarial conflict. That is not in our interests. It is in our interests to highlight some of the issues where we will need co-operation come what may. I will give a few examples of what those transitional arrangements might be. We are right to put the relationship on this island first and foremost in the debate on how UK and EU citizens will be treated in corresponding jurisdictions.

We should be upfront and quick in sorting out the issue of a common travel area on this island as well as east-west travel arrangements between Ireland and Britain. We must also address the rights of European citizens in the North because their ability to work in the South may be a complicated issue. While travel will not be restricted, restrictions may apply in respect of employment and so forth. The island of Ireland could be used as a test case for addressing some of these issues.

I was fortunate to visit Brussels two weeks ago to attend a major conference on the development of an energy union. It is becoming increasingly obvious that energy co-operation will be essential to the economic interests of the United Kingdom, regardless of the outcome of the Brexit negotiations. The UK recently completed a modelling exercise on its future energy mix in a low carbon world, which we must all move towards. Included in the exercise was a ramping up of its strategy to achieve much greater interconnection. Notwithstanding Brexit, Britain is planning to provide approximately 12 GW of additional capacity of electricity capacity between the UK and the rest of Europe by 2035. Market rules and jurisdictional arrangements are needed should a conflict or dispute arise. It is in everyone's interests, including those of the rest of Europe, to get this interconnection right. We need to share and balance energy, achieve security of gas supplies and adopt common standards to be adhered to should a pollution incident arise in the Irish Sea, for example, from Sellafield. We also have the whole EURATOM issue. We need to get agreement on all these issues very quickly. There is no reason to wait for divorce arrangements to be agreed between the UK and EU before starting negotiations on these issues. Starting negotiations now would be a better European strategy that would wrong-foot the hard-line Brexiteers by focusing on some of the good outcomes co-operation would deliver. This would change the nature of the negotiation strategy.

My advice to the Taoiseach and his officials in advance of the European Council meeting is that he should state to Michel Barnier, his officials and the European Parliament that we should not wait for six or nine months but start now to create a safe space for discussions on these matters and numerous other areas. The Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, for example, faces significant issues on migration which need to be addressed. Why wait or delay? Let us get involved in negotiations now. It would help us to shape our priorities if we played on a European pitch in this way, rather than concentrating only on our national effort.

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