Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 May 2018
2. Deputy Joan Burton asked the Taoiseach the division of responsibilities between his Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in respect of Northern Ireland affairs and the restoration of power-sharing at Stormont. [20058/18]
View answerAs the Deputy would expect, there is close co-operation between my Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which has primary responsibility for matters relating to Northern Ireland, North-South co-operation and British-Irish relations. Officials from the two Departments work very closely together across the range of issues relating to Northern Ireland and British-Irish affairs.
Within my Department, the Northern Ireland section supports me, in my role as Taoiseach, on Northern Ireland matters. It supports me in my contacts with the British Prime Minister in the context of the role of the two Governments as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement and in the ongoing efforts to secure the restoration of the institutions under the agreement.
It also assists me with my participation in key institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, such as the North-South Ministerial Council, when operational, and the British-Irish Council and in other aspects of cross-Border engagement and co-operation.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has the lead role in respect of the day-to-day interaction with the Northern Ireland institutions, when they are operating, the Northern Ireland political parties and the Northern Ireland Office. As part of this role, that Department provides staff and funding to the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference secretariat in Belfast and the North-South Ministerial Council joint secretariat in Armagh.
The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and his staff are also in regular contact with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the main political parties in Northern Ireland regarding matters of concern to the Irish Government, including issues relating to the Good Friday Agreement and subsequent agreements, talks on the restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive and, of course, Brexit.
As I am sure the Taoiseach is aware, yesterday four of the party leaders in the North - Michelle O'Neill of Sinn Féin, Colum Eastwood of the SDLP, Naomi Long of the Alliance Party and Stephen Agnew of the Green Party - issued a statement recognising that the North should remain in the Single Market and the customs union. That was agreed by all four.
Over the weekend and in recent days there has been a flurry of senior British Tory politicians not only commenting on what would happen with North-South issues and the island of Ireland, but also visiting the North. In particular, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mrs. Bradley, is apparently testing how maximum facilitation, or max fac, can be made to work and whether it can be made to work for Northern Ireland. I welcome that the Taoiseach was very clear last week that he was standing by the backstop and that max fac was very unlikely to offer anything much in the case of Northern Ireland or indeed the island of Ireland. We also had statements from and visits by people such as the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis, and the UK Business Secretary, who are also exploring the technological solution for the Border.
Obviously, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade would have considerable detailed contact, particularly with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, but also with other line Ministers. Are they really getting the Government's message to the effect that as far as people are concerned-----
All right.
-----here in the Republic and in the North from the statement of the four party leaders-----
I thank the Deputy. We must finish.
-----there is no appetite for technological solutions of any kind because it does not appear that they can be made to work and that, in any event, they would entail the reintroduction of some form of hard border which, as the Taoiseach has said - we all agree with him on this - we do not want?
I will give all the Members one minute for supplementary questions.
I will take half a minute.
That is even better.
I have one question. The absence of power-sharing in Northern Ireland is a real problem for all of us. It seems to have disappeared entirely from the political discourse right now. Specifically, are there ongoing initiatives to seek to restore the power-sharing Executive in Northern Ireland?
I too invite the Taoiseach to make a response to the joint statement from Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Alliance Party and the Green Party. It sets out clearly the majority view of people in the North that the island would remain in its totality within the customs union and the Single Market, and goes further in that Britain might also remain within those arrangements. It also makes clear that the backstop as agreed last December represents a minimum bottom line. I think this brings a level of clarity, particularly in circumstances where we see that recent polling data suggest sentiment in the North of Ireland to remain has increased quite dramatically since the Brexit referendum. A response to that from the Taoiseach, as Head of Government, would be welcome.
What progress has been made in respect of the calling of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference? To answer Deputy Burton, we reckon it is the best mechanism available to us at this stage to kick-start that very pathway back to the power-sharing institutions.
Has the Government made a decision in respect of appealing the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights regarding the hooded men? As the Taoiseach knows, the appeal must be made before 18 June, so time is running out.
It is clear to me that the elephant in the room in terms of Northern Ireland and Brexit is the absence of an Executive and an Assembly. There is a lot of hype and rhetoric about regulatory alignment with regard to the customs union, being part of the Single Market and all of that. However, it is extraordinary, given the grave threat that Brexit represents to the island, particularly to Northern Ireland's economy, and notwithstanding all of the huge difficulties we had in the past that we were able to surmount, in terms of the establishment of the Executive and the Assembly, that we cannot do the same now and that the parties concerned do not see the urgency and necessity for this. Given everything that Brexit represents, the parties concerned need to come together without conditions at this stage to re-establish the Executive and the Assembly and at least have a legal parliamentary and governmental framework to shape Brexit for Northern Ireland. Opinion polls will not shape Northern Ireland's fate in the context of Brexit but an Assembly and an Executive could have a far more effective capacity and influence in shaping Brexit. Look at what the Scottish Parliament has done by voting against the wishes of the British Government and nailing its colours to the mast as to what it wants. There are regular meetings of the Brexit Ministers in Scotland and Wales with the Brexit Secretary but there is a complete absence of this in Northern Ireland.
First, I strongly and warmly welcome the statement by the four parties in Northern Ireland - the Alliance Party, the SDLP, Sinn Féin and the Green Party - expressing their view that they want Northern Ireland to stay within the structures of the Single Market and the customs union, and presumably to remain part of the European Economic Area. I am conscious of the fact that, when we add those parties together, they make up the majority of people elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, so I think it is a very significant statement and a very welcome one from those four parties.
I have also seen the Queen's University Belfast opinion poll, which very clearly indicates what the people of Northern Ireland want, what their wishes are and what they would like to consent to. It shows well over 60% of people in Northern Ireland still wanting to remain in the European Union and very much the majority of people from both communities - the Catholic and nationalist community and the Protestant and unionist community - expressing their strong view that they want to remain within the European Union, the Single Market and the customs union. I really hope and trust that the UK Government will take into account the wishes of people in Northern Ireland over the next couple of months.
There is a lot of ongoing contact, as Deputies would expect. The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade is in regular contact with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Minister for the Cabinet Office, David Lidington. I met Prime Minister May just last week. Once again, I want to say that the Government and I, as Taoiseach, stand by the political agreement that was made in December and we expect it to be honoured in full by the UK Government. We also stand by and continue to support the text of the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland-Ireland protocol, which was published in March. The task force and the other 27 member states absolutely stand by that as well. I look forward to welcoming the Prime Minister of Belgium, who will be visiting this week, and I will talk to him a little more about that. At least until such time as somebody puts forward an alternative that is as good as, or better than, the backstop, we will be insisting that it be part of the withdrawal agreement and there can be no withdrawal agreement without us being satisfied that that is the case.
In regard to efforts to assist the parties in Northern Ireland to re-establish the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, that work is ongoing. Prime Minister May and I discussed that in Sofia and, again, the Tánaiste is working with Secretary of State Bradley and David Lidington, on what we can do, as Governments, to encourage the DUP and Sinn Féin to set aside their differences. Rhetoric is cheap, compromise is not. Deputy Micheál Martin is correct that the best thing that Sinn Féin and all the parties that have representation in Northern Ireland can do now is to get the Assembly up and running and get the Executive functioning. What would be much stronger than a statement from the four parties would be a vote by the Assembly to say what was said in that statement but with the Assembly not meeting, it is not able to do that. This means people in Northern Ireland are at a disadvantage compared with people in Scotland, for example, where the Parliament is meeting and passing resolutions and where the Government in Scotland is speaking up for its people, with the authority of Government, not just one party.
