Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have been talking about Brexit for the past year and we will probably talk about it for another few years but it reminds me of the phoney war before the Second World War when there were eight months of no military manoeuvres and then all hell broke loose. This has been a phoney war so far but we are now coming up to the time when the trouble starts. We discussed the Norway-Sweden border at a Brexit fact-finding meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Belfast last Monday but it is very different from the Border between the Republic of Ireland and the North. It is rural and mountainous and there are not too many crossing points and while it may be an option it will be politically very difficult for customs in both jurisdictions.

I have spoken to many diplomats and they told me of the difficulties that there were with the isolationist relationship between the Republic and Northern Ireland, and between the Republic and the United Kingdom, up until the late 1960s and 1970s. The Minister for Foreign Affairs often meets the Foreign Secretary but that simply did not happen in those days. There was not much co-operation between the two islands at the time. The point that 1973 was a game changer, with our entry into the EEC along with Great Britain, is correct. It worries me that we might lose a lot of good organisations such as the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, the North-South Ministerial Council and the North-South interparliamentary association. Every day at least 26 meetings take place in Europe involving Irish officials and politicians and we are going to lose that. How will we replace that vacuum? What can we do to ensure we never go back to a situation where the lines of communication are not open for difficult situations? The British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly meets in committee meetings and for two or three days every six months. I am afraid that the dialogue, the friendships and the political understandings built up over the past 20 years will break down when the UK leaves the EU. Do the witnesses have any suggestions for what we can do to ensure those links are maintained and enhanced?