Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I said to the Taoiseach last week that it was essential that Ireland insist on a deadline for the UK to produce an acceptable legal backstop agreement with the European Union on the Irish Border issue. I believe such a deadline could and should be set well in advance of the European Council meeting in October, so that Ireland is not forced under pressure from all sides to accept any kind of last-minute compromise on a matter of such profound importance to the future of this country and all our people.

Unfortunately, no such commitment or demand was forthcoming. I acknowledge and welcome the support for Ireland in the agreed conclusions of the European Council meeting but those conclusions are truly worrying, namely, that no substantial progress has yet been achieved on agreeing a backstop. There need to be intensified efforts in accordance with the conclusions to bring a conclusion to the withdrawal agreement. I welcome the continued support for Ireland of Michel Barnier and Jean-Claude Juncker but we must not forget that the final decision on Brexit will be made by the 27 EU countries and not by the current negotiating team, who are so well versed in the issues and supportive of us.

Few could have predicted the drama that unfolded last Thursday night at the European Council. While we have been rightly preoccupied for months with the progress on Brexit, the migration crisis has continued to engulf much of the EU and could still cost Chancellor Merkel her position. The new Italian Prime Minister used his domestic concerns to stall progress on every other European issue. I do not suggest for a moment that Ireland should employ the same tactics but we should acknowledge that issues move very quickly on the European agenda. The other 26 national governments are subject to a variety of domestic pressures and our national concerns may well, at this crucial juncture, become sidelined.

For six months we were told by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste that the June European Council meeting would be the make-or-break moment. The Government billed June as a deadline for the British and our EU negotiators to have certainty about the future but the British did not deliver and Brexit ended up being a side item on the Council agenda. It is, therefore, incumbent on the Government to take the necessary risks to demand that we have clarity on the UK position well in advance of the October summit. I have been saying for a year that constant moving of the goalposts will leave us in a critical position for October.

As matters stand, the British Prime Minister will present a third post-Brexit model for discussion to her Cabinet colleagues at Chequers this Friday. If we assume that there is an agreed British Cabinet position - and that is a rather big assumption - it will be entirely reasonable for the Government to insist that, over the next eight weeks or so, it gets hammered out into something that provides legal clarity on the Irish question. There is no point in having a proposal that is not acceptable, just to hold the British Tory position intact.

Alternatively, if there continues to be discord within the British Government, which again is a possibility, resulting in another unworkable set of proposals, then there will be even more urgency to insist on clarity well in advance of the October summit. There is a solid argument for Ireland to seek a special summit of EU Heads of Government in September to copper-fasten the Irish Border agreement in advance of October. It was a suggestion put forward by the former Taoiseach on the day he was presented with the European of the Year award. It has merit. There may well be a need for an additional summit so that we are not facing a last ditch chance in October with a variety of other agenda items.

On the terms of trade, the planned transition period provides extra time to finalise the EU-UK relationship and the details on the specificities of trade, but once 29 March next year is passed, the UK, including Northern Ireland, is outside the EU framework, and our leverage to protect the Good Friday Agreement, as we have all acknowledged in this House, is very much reduced. To be clear, Ireland's interests are of a shorter timetable than the interests of our European partners on this one matter. The fundamental economic and social pressures that will push them towards a final deal with the UK will not be in force, as the Taoiseach will be aware, until the end of 2020. The risks of a half-baked agreement falling apart in October will be felt disproportionately negatively in Ireland. We have only 268 days left to safeguard the peace and prosperity that has been hard won over more than 20 years.

In terms of the immediate social and economic pressures facing our European partners, migration was obviously the overwhelming and main focus of the Council meeting. Migration numbers, as the Taoiseach acknowledged earlier, have declined. In 2017, there were around 720,000 applications for international protection in the European Union, which is a decrease of 44% on the previous year, 2016, when there was almost 1.3 million applications. If anything, however, and I believe the Taoiseach has also said this, the political migration crisis has got much worse due to the reaction to that 2015 and 2016 peak. Clearly, the crisis has shown up flaws in the EU's systems for processing asylum applications, but the main danger is that migration has been politicised across Europe - it is now, as the Taoiseach has acknowledged, a cornerstone of the Austrian Presidency agenda - often in the context of political movements using misinformation to stoke up fear and resentment for their own political advantage in a variety of European countries.

Many of the asylum seekers are fleeing a brutal war in Syria and others are fleeing conflicts in the Middle East or Africa. I agree with the remarks of Donald Tusk, the President of the Council, that the real challenge now is to implement the migration reforms of last week. We can see domestic political strain in Germany, Austria and Italy and that will manifest itself elsewhere.

I welcome the announced transfer of €500 million of development money to the EU Trust Fund for Africa. It is something for which I called, including in my very short address to President Juncker when he was here. A Marshall plan for Europe's neighbourhood to foster economic development in the countries surrounding the EU is the best way in the long term to stem economic migration because it ultimately reduces the economic disparities between Europe and its neighbours, but it will require a great deal more money than is currently on the table.

We also need to show leadership on the migration issue in Ireland. Compared with the European countries we talked about, the ones at the coalface, Greece, Italy, Germany, Spain and so on, Ireland has relatively low migration, even on a per capita basis. I was shocked, however, by a headline in the media today that Ireland was found to be seriously deficient in addressing hate crime. That is contained in a major report published today. It is jarring for us because we did not believe that was true. Hate crime is disproportionately focused on visible minorities such as people from Africa or the Middle East. We had rightly prided ourselves as a country that has integrated many newcomers, particularly in the recent past, and that we have not had a rise of a particular political party that is xenophobic, but we should not take these things for granted.

As part of playing our role to create a Europe that is open, welcoming and tolerant, we should ensure that hate crime legislation meets international best practice. Similarly, as I have said previously, we need to end direct provision and provide a pathway to Irish citizenship for the undocumented migrants here. Otherwise we are in great danger of institutionalising a second tier of unofficial residents who are forced to live their lives in the shadows. That is not an acceptable situation. We are only dealing with small numbers of people at a time when this country has nearly full employment and we can easily accommodate the few thousand people in asylum centres now. When there are dark clouds over our Continent, let us show moral leadership on this important issue.

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