Micheál Martin
Ceist:8. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his recent discussions with the British Prime Minister, Mrs. Theresa May. [22293/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraTuesday, 12 June 2018
Ceisteanna (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
Micheál Martin
Ceist:9. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his own guarantee regarding his commitment on 15 May 2018 on there being no border between North and South; and the responses he has received from British Prime Minister May and European Union partners when he informed them that under no circumstances will there be a border. [22571/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraMicheál Martin
Ceist:10. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach if he has spoken to Ms Nicola Sturgeon recently or since the Scottish Parliament rejected the Brexit Bill on 15 May 2018. [22572/18]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Brendan Howlin
Ceist:11. Deputy Brendan Howlin asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister May in Sofia. [22706/18]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Richard Boyd Barrett
Ceist:12. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his recent meeting with the British Prime Minister, Mrs. Theresa May. [22709/18]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Joan Burton
Ceist:13. Deputy Joan Burton asked the Taoiseach if he has spoken to Ms Nicola Sturgeon recently or since the Scottish Parliament rejected the Brexit Bill on 15 May 2018. [23418/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraJoan Burton
Ceist:14. Deputy Joan Burton asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his recent discussions with the British Prime Minister, Mrs. Theresa May. [23420/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraMicheál Martin
Ceist:15. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach if he and British Prime Minister May discussed the reconvening of the Northern Ireland Assembly when they met in Sofia. [23439/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraMicheál Martin
Ceist:16. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach if he has spoken to British Prime Minister May since 6 June 2018. [25654/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraFreagraí ó Béal (23 píosaí cainte)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 to 16, inclusive, together.
I met British Prime Minister May on the margins of the EU-western Balkans summit in Sofia, Bulgaria, on 17 May. We discussed current developments on Brexit and the ongoing efforts to assist the parties in Northern Ireland to re-establish the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. Prime Minister May told me in Sofia that she expected to table proposals on the customs relationship between the European Union and the UK shortly thereafter. At this time, I made clear that any move on customs that can keep the UK close to the European Union is to be welcomed. I also emphasised to her that upholding the commitment to avoid a hard border requires progress on more than just customs.
As the House will be aware, the UK Government published its proposals last week and they are now the subject of discussion between the UK and the EU task force. The agreed report from December makes clear that continued alignment on both Single Market and customs rules is necessary. In many ways, the regulatory issues are even more important than customs here. Whereas the UK paper contains proposals on customs, it does not deal with regulatory issues other than acknowledging that they will also have to be dealt with. Consequently, even if we can reach agreement around the latest UK proposals, that will not of itself constitute a full and satisfactory backstop.
When we met, I made clear to the British Prime Minister that Ireland would continue to insist on a legally operable backstop being in the withdrawal agreement. This would be in line with the commitments made by the UK in December and repeated by the British Prime Minister in her letter to Mr. Donald Tusk in March. It must apply unless and until any better arrangements are agreed, be compatible with the rules of the Single Market and customs union and ensure the avoidance of a hard border. To this end, I have been consistent in my message to both Prime Minister May and my fellow EU Heads of State and Government at the European Council that the reintroduction of a border on the island of Ireland is not acceptable under any circumstances. I am grateful for their continued understanding and support.
Finally, while I have not spoken to Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon recently, I expect to see her next week at the meeting of the British-Irish Council in Guernsey.
This group of questions deals with the European Union specifically and I will focus on the Brexit negotiations while dealing with the Northern Ireland matters in the next group of questions. Following the Taoiseach's error at the previous summit, when he said that letting the negotiations slip to October was okay by him, we had a couple of months' worth of statements from the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste indicating that a failure to agree a backstop text in June would be a major problem. On 28 March, for example, when he was sent out to clean up after the Taoiseach's comments, the Tánaiste said that any failure to agree the text in June would raise "very serious questions" as to whether any deal was possible. They were the Tánaiste's comments some months ago on the importance of the June deadline. The Taoiseach was asked about this by me repeatedly during Question Time and he repeated that a failure to meet the June deadline would be a very ominous sign.
When the British Government revealed its plan, the Taoiseach welcomed it as important progress but it has now been formally rejected by the European Union. It is reported this morning that yesterday the line changed again and the Taoiseach has said that October was always been the deadline and we should not be too worried. I believe the Taoiseach is familiar with "The Thick of It" and in that programme, this was called a "reverse ferret". It is the changing of a position without acknowledging the position that has just been abandoned. Given all the statements from the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste that the backstop, as defined by them, was watertight and that a failure to hit a June deadline would mark serious trouble, will the Taoiseach say if it is still his view that the backstop is watertight and the negotiations concerning Ireland are in serious trouble?
From the very start it was stated that a fundamental objective for Ireland was that the Irish issue would not still be in question when the final withdrawal text was being discussed. We have not now achieved this. Will the Taoiseach explain how he expects us to get from today's blockage to a breakthrough that delivers for Ireland? Mr. Michel Barnier has restated his demand that a Northern Ireland-specific proposal be tabled. Is the Taoiseach proposing to take any initiative on this or will the position remain that the United Kingdom alone should do what it has so far been incapable of doing, which is to propose a credible mechanism for delivering a soft border?
Most of us are becoming very fearful of the direction of travel in the negotiations, despite what was said last December. The Taoiseach warned the withdrawal agreement would be in question if progress was not made by the June Council. Specifically, he stated that "if we are not making real and substantial progress by June then we need to seriously question whether we are going to have a withdrawal agreement at all".
The UK Government is unable to agree a route to implement the backstop it had agreed. Westminster, as the Taoiseach knows, today and tomorrow is going through critical votes. A junior Minister, Phillip Lee, has resigned from government because of government policy on not allowing Westminster a conclusive final vote on the matter. The Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Coveney, previously said serious questions would have to be asked if progress on the backstop was not made by June. This seems to have changed because he is now saying the June Council meeting should not be built up to something it is not. However, he was the one who built it up. The Taoiseach himself has changed his tune. He said last Saturday, "The deadline is October and I do think it is possible between now and October for us to finalise and negotiate." This seems to be the current position. Real and substantial progress on a document to implement what we understood to have been agreed and to be bullet-proof last December was to be achieved before the final negotiating Council, which is in June. Now, as I had feared and as I have said in a number of contributions here and elsewhere, that seems to be slipping to the October deadline. The October Council meeting was always going to be simply to ratify finally. It is not a negotiating Council in and of itself and there would be very little scope for the European Parliament or indeed national parliaments to debate and understand the details if we are going to slip into the October deadline, so we need now to now make a very clear statement of the Irish position on these matters.
The Taoiseach's predecessor, Deputy Enda Kenny, said yesterday, at a function the Taoiseach and I both attended, that little progress has been made since September and he was very honest in saying so. He said that in order now to address the outstanding issues, it might be necessary for a special Council meeting to be convened before October. Does the Taoiseach think this strategy might be needed?
Our job in the Opposition is in the first instance to hold the Taoiseach and his Government to account. The very least we expect is that he and his Government deliver on their own commitments and the benchmarks they set. Last December, the Taoiseach was very clear and unequivocal in his comments on the backstop, which he knows and I know was meant to be a permanent solution for Ireland to align the North with the rules of the Single Market and customs union in the event of no deal between Britain and the European Union. What happened a number of days ago, when the British Government published its paper, was that it reconstructed that backstop to nothing more than a UK-wide extension of the implementation period. There is now no certainty for Ireland as to what will happen if the talks break down, which is obviously very serious. I do not necessarily blame the Taoiseach for this. While obviously we must hold him to account, and his Government did say we would only be able to move past June if we had real and substantial progress, we also have a responsibility as Oireachtas Members and as politicians in Ireland to ensure we support positions that get the best deal for Ireland. This is genuinely what we have done in approaching all these Brexit negotiations. We need to ensure there is no fracture in the Irish position. We will be as supportive as we can but we also need to see real progress. The people were entitled to see real progress in June and, unfortunately, they have not seen it. The reality is - it has been said over and over - that the Government has possibly oversold the December agreement and the British Government, as divided as it is, has pulled a rug from under the European negotiators and the Irish Government by essentially taking the backstop off the table and replacing it with an extension of the implementation period, which does nothing for the people of Ireland.
My final point is this: regarding the high-level principles on which everyone - the British Government, the European negotiators and the Irish Government - agrees, namely, protection of the Good Friday Agreement, no hardening of the Border, and citizens' rights, in huge swathes of these areas we still have no agreement and it is our responsibility to hold the Taoiseach to account as to why this is the case.
Perhaps we will look back on history and see that a mistake was made last December in respect of the first agreement that was set whereby we would have an arrangement for Ireland, North and South, which was not accepted by the DUP, which insisted it be broadened to include some arrangement with the UK. Perhaps we would have been better to stick with the original deal because it does not seem to me likely that the European Union will accept "a" customs arrangement which would allow the entirety of the UK and Northern Ireland the benefits of such a deal without committing to regulatory alignment and so on. I would be interested to hear the Taoiseach's thoughts on this. Does he think the end outcome may be that we will revert to that original deal, which I think was agreed on the Monday of that week in December, whereby we will agree customs checks in effect at ports on the island of Ireland? I would be interested to hear his thoughts on the likelihood of our getting a deal whereby east-west customs arrangements would get similar special provision that we are seeking on a North-South basis. When I listen to Monsieur Barnier now, I think that is highly unlikely. Perhaps we should have been more honest back in December to stick to the original Monday deal.
Perhaps we will take five or six minutes to deal with this grouping.
Absolutely.
We shall say six minutes.
Referring back to the December 2017 agreement, it is of course a political agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU, and in that political agreement the UK guarantees there will be no hard border, with no physical infrastructure, customs or controls. I believe this will be honoured and achieved. I used the term "bullet-proof" to describe the agreement at the time but I also used other words. I said it was the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end, I said we needed to stay vigilant and I said our next objective would be to ensure it was made legally binding by ensuring that it was written into the withdrawal agreement. This is exactly the work we have been doing in recent months and we have a draft withdrawal agreement with an Irish protocol which achieves exactly that. The United Kingdom has not agreed to it, but that is the point at which we are now, where we have a draft legally binding withdrawal agreement with an Irish protocol-----
Which is not agreed.
-----which achieves exactly what we want to achieve.
The Government does not have an agreement if it is not agreed.
I should say that there is no such thing as a negotiating council. We do not have negotiations at the Council. When we enter Article 50 format, the UK is not there; it is the EU member states' heads of government among ourselves. The negotiations happen bilaterally between the task force, the TF50, and the United Kingdom. I have heard people talking about European Council meetings in June or October as though they were the Fisheries Council-----
-----or the budget Council, as if late at night a meeting or deal would be cobbled together.
There often is.
That is not how this will work because it is not like that. The negotiations do not happen at the Council. The UK is not-----
It was the Tánaiste who emphasised the June Council meeting more than anyone else.
-----in the room. These negotiations happen bilaterally-----
Everyone in the building can talk.
-----and I think Deputy Enda Kenny made that point extremely well when he spoke yesterday. Perhaps another former Taoiseach saw it differently, but there will not be a last-minute, 2 a.m. deal in the run-up to Hallowe'en in October because that is not how this is structured. The negotiations happen between the task force and the UK, not at the Council meeting itself.
I have always said that the deadline for finalising the withdrawal agreement, including the Irish protocol, was October. That is what is in the EU guidelines. That is what I said many months ago at the March Council meeting, if Deputies want to check back. However, I have also said we need to see real and meaningful progress before the June Council meeting. The UK proposal, which came out last week is welcome, it is a small step forward, but it is at best a partial solution to part of the problem. It deals with customs but does not deal with regulation. The paper admits this, that standards and regulation would have to be dealt with separately, and it appears to be time-limited, which we cannot accept. For a backstop to be a backstop, it must apply unless and until-----
That is a crucial point that is missing from the agreement.
-----something better is found to replace it in the context of the new EU-UK agreement. The EU 27 will decide at the June Council meeting whether or not real and meaningful progress has been made. As things stand, I must say it has not. What was produced last week from London was a small step in the right direction: it was welcome but as I said earlier it is at best a partial solution to part of the problem and therefore does not constitute real and meaningful progress in my view. We will therefore need to see more from London, from the United Kingdom, in the next two weeks as we head into the Council meeting.
Otherwise, it will not be possible to say that progress is being made. That brings into question whether it will be possible to agree a withdrawal agreement by the October deadline. As everyone appreciates, this is a difficult negotiation. It often feels as though the United Kingdom is negotiating with itself more than with us, which makes matters rather tricky. The upside is that the European Union is totally united, with all 27 member states standing together behind the task force, whose members are our agents, in support of our shared objectives. It is from that position of strength that we will get the outcome we want.