Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Tá fáilte roimh an tÁire. He will be aware that the members of the Joint Committee on European Affairs visited Brussels in the past two days. I was a member of the group and during the two-day period we held 14 meetings with different individuals and groupings, ranging from Monsieur Barnier to Commissioner Hogan. I have to compliment the Government because from what I heard in Brussels, a sizeable amount of work has been done by it in preparing for Brexit. However, it is perfectly clear to me from every meeting we held in Brussels that the time to drive home the needs of the Good Friday Agreement has passed. Everybody understands this. Yesterday morning Monsieur Barnier made the point that in 1999 he had visited Northern Ireland where he met two people on two occasions in different rooms, David Trimble and John Hume, and said the memory of the meetings would never leave him. He said the one thing he could tell us as we entered into the negotiations on Brexit was that he would not do anything to destabilise what had taken many years to put in place and work. He said he would do everything he could to hold it in place.

While Monsieur Barnier said it would be easy enough to deal with the issue of free movement of people, he also said he was asking the Irish Government to provide him with a solution in dealing with the issue of trade. What came across at every meeting was that they wanted the Irish Government to identify five or six principles that Ireland holded dear which set out our demands in the negotiations on Brexit and to provide solutions, where possible. Mr. Verhofstadt made the point yesterday that no matter how outlandish the solution seemed to us, we should put it on the table. He wants to hear how Ireland wants to deal with the issue. There was a clear understanding the island of Ireland had to be looked upon as a complete entity, North and South. Nobody had any answer as to how that would be achieved and one would not expect them to show their hand at this time, but I came away from Brussels totally satisfied in my mind that there was massive sympathy and support for our position within the Parliament, the Commission and among those who would be negotiating.

I fear there is a risk that we are sailing too close to the United Kingdom. We need to establish ourselves as good Europeans and to be seen as such. We need to constantly reaffirm our commitment to the European model and the European project which I believe the Minister will agree is in serious trouble, given the unrest across Europe. As good Europeans - we have always led the way in that regard - the time has come for us to do this.

What would be wrong at this stage with bringing in expertise from outside the Government? The members of the Irish Road Hauliers Association who cross borders every day of the week in travelling across Europe might have something to help us. The technological solution was dismissed in some of the discussions we had in which it was argued that the use of cameras and various other electronic devices might not be the way to go. I am not sure what the Minister's view is, but I know that he has all the sympathy and support he needs elsewhere in Europe.

The final matter I want to address is the Supreme Court ruling in the United Kingdom. It is clear from it - I attended a high level conference in Queen's University Belfast hosted by its legal department - that Westminster will trigger Article 50, irrespective of the view of any of the devolved governments. It does not need the permission of the assemblies in Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales to trigger it. It is also clear that when it does trigger Article 50, it should have some primary legislation in place to reaffirm the Good Friday Agreement to ensure we will not find ourselves having to renegotiate any part of it, albeit that it is part of an international treaty which would be difficult to destabilise in any way.

Several of the people whom we met in Brussels pointed to the availability of European Investment Bank funding for capital projects in Ireland. One of the issues I discussed was the provision of what I refer to as a new European super highway to aid the further development of Rosslare, Waterford and Cork ports. There should be ferries sailing directly to mainland Europe, rather than having trucks stopped at the borders with the United Kingdom. We should develop our own super highway to bypass the UK problem. I do not know if such plans have yet been put on the table, but I do know that there are plans in Galway, for example, for a deep see harbour. It might not be the most direct route to mainland Europe, but as a good Galwegian, I would have to support that plan. On the possibility of ferries sailing from Cork, Waterford, Rosslare, Dublin and Drogheda straight to the northern part of mainland Europe, are we looking at such projects, in addition to projects for the construction of a motorway to Letterkenny to improve the western corridor from Letterkenny to Cork, which is an horrendous trip to have to take?

I thank the Minister for giving of his time.

I was most impressed by the understanding that exists and it is down to the work of the Government. The Minister of State, Deputy Murphy, was most accommodating while we were over there and I thank him for that.