Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being a little late. Brexit is the great unknown. The only plan is there is no plan. At least that is what I was told at a meeting in Brussels last week. I have just come from a meeting of the Joint Committee on European Affairs and we seem to be focusing on the relationship between the UK and Ireland. We seem to be forgetting there are 26 other jurisdictions that have some very clear views and, I have to say, not a whole lot of sympathy from what I saw at a recent conference in Brussels. I brought up the issue of the unique position of Ireland and the Border at that round-table meeting where there were a few hundred people in attendance, but the only people who spoke in favour of the Border problem were the Scottish and Gibraltarians, which left me a little scared. The Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Affairs told us at the Joint Committee on European Affairs that Britain is about to learn a hard lesson. If Britain learns a hard lesson, it is my view that we will be trounced in that hard lesson, and the Northern Ireland economy, in particular, will suffer desperately because I cannot see the funding that comes from Europe coming from Westminster. It may come up to 2020 but after that, we are in serious trouble. I would be interested to hear the witnesses' views on that.

The only commonality I see across the European area is between Gibraltar, Scotland, ourselves and Northern Ireland. I noticed at the meeting to which I referred that Mr. Carswell, MP, from UKIP adopted a terrible softening of his party's position. He was no longer talking about Britain being the great and good. He was talking about free trade and free movement of workers, which was an interesting change of opinion. If there is an indication that UKIP is softening its approach, and I can only base it on one man so there is no empirical evidence to support that, is there any indication in the North of Ireland that there is a softening towards Brexit as well? Would the witnesses agree that there is no clearer set of principles than that, either in the UK or in the European Union, that we know of which will be key to the negotiations under Article 50? Despite all the tough talk on either side, I am not sure that either side has the confidence to bring this forward. One of the points made at that conference was that while Article 50 exists, nobody ever expected it would be used. We are now entering into the great unknown, there is no pathway and no clear vision. There was some talk of a derogation for Northern Ireland and Scotland to respect the democratic vote that took place there. I would be interested to hear the witnesses' opinions on that.

I have three further brief points. We have called a forum in Dublin and clearly the DUP has decided it will not participate in it, unless I am slightly behind the curve on that. How do we get all interested parties around the table? There is some suggestion that the business community has moved ahead of the political world and I would be interested to hear the witnesses' views on that. As a centre with cross-Border interests, is the centre modelling different scenarios such as a hard Border versus a soft Border, the free movement of labour across the two and the possibility, as I have raised previously, that either Dundalk or Belfast would become a major refugee camp, as Ireland is the nearest land border to Cherbourg, for the want of a better place?

I apologise for throwing a lot of stuff at the witnesses. I would be interested in hearing their views on the matters I have raised.