Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 6 April 2017

Seanad Committee on the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union

Engagement with former Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern

10:30 am

Photo of Joe O'ReillyJoe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the outset I join in the welcome to former Taoiseach Ahern, and thank him for taking the trouble to come and engage with this very important public discourse.

The first basic concern in this country is around the free movement of people. It is particularly acute in the area that I come from in that there is a huge anxiety to preserve the common travel area, to have a seamless Border and that the estimated 30,000 trips made every day across the Border - for educational reasons, for going to work, for trading, through kinship and for shopping - would continue as they are today. It is a huge issue, and it should be secured in the negotiations. It would appear from what Prime Minister May has said in her recent statements and from the draft negotiating paper that we have reason for optimism and that we can be hopeful in this area. I would be interested in Mr. Ahern's opinion as to whether we can carry that off.

The second big concern, at a practical level in people's lives, is the prospect of a customs barrier and potentially having to pay customs duties on products going across the Border into Northern Ireland and into the UK directly. Where that to be the case it would devalue our exports considerably and be very damaging to Irish agriculture, 57% of which goes to the UK. As Mr. Ahern said in his introductory remarks, this applies across a range of areas, including services and technologies.

It is not simply agriculture, but agriculture is an area of tight margins where it would be particularly acute. Mr. Ahern cited figures suggesting that the UK would need to achieve 25% new trading arrangements with third countries to offset a loss of 5% within Europe. That is a fascinating figure. That gives us optimism for a trade agreement. Does he envisage a trade agreement that would still have customs duties of any kind or does he think we can achieve a free-trade situation? What kind of trade agreement does he envisage? If customs duties were to exist how could we cope with this at a domestic level? Obviously, the optimum condition would be that we would not have a customs barrier with customs duties to be paid. I ask Mr. Ahern to discuss that prospect, which is probably the most pernicious and difficult, and is of great concern to the agriculture sector and other sectors.

I ask Mr. Ahern to discuss the opportunities presented by Brexit, with the possibility of the jobs in the banking sector, financial services, etc. coming to Dublin. Will Frankfurt completely steal a march on us here or is Mr. Ahern optimistic that important financial services and banking organisations, including some high-profile ones, could relocate from London to here post Brexit? That would obviously have enormous implications for our country.

Through my membership of the Council of Europe, I meet many UK parliamentarians. I share Mr. Ahern's view that they have a misplaced optimism over the Commonwealth countries as trading partners post Brexit. If I understood him correctly I believe he said he thinks the penny will drop gradually on that one and ultimately a more sober analysis will emerge - it may be beginning to emerge - and as a result we could get a favourable trading agreement. That is an area of potential hope. I think they have a misplaced optimism here.

If the EU were to have a good new trading agreement with the UK, would that involve an imposition of standards on the UK relating to products it would accept in from third countries? For example, no one would want beef without traceability, agricultural goods without proper veterinary standards and without proper care of animals, etc. and with the risk of inappropriate treatment of animals in terms of hormones etc. and the wrong products going into the animals pre-export. Would we be in a position to achieve regulatory standards within the UK on that score?

Mr. Ahern made a very forthright statement about a possible Border poll. I share that view. My party is known as Fine Gael the United Ireland Party. Nobody - least of all somebody from a Border county like me - does not passionately aspire to and long for Irish unity. I think it is every Irish person's dream that it would be achieved within their lifetime. I fully agree with Mr. Ahern's analysis that an Irish unity that would be achieved must, obviously, be a unity of hearts and minds, and a community of interest and mutual respect.

This whole process might bring forward the day when a considerable number of Unionists see their best interest in a united-Ireland context. Therein lies the great opportunity for us. I mentioned other opportunities earlier. If I sense what Mr. Ahern is saying correctly, this presents us with an opportunity to hold out the olive branch to work with unionism in the North, work with people who would have had a jaundiced view of us in the past, and try to build up relationships on a personal level and through trips North and South at school level, business level and every other level until we get the conditions where such a poll would not just be a sectarian headcount, but a Border poll with cross-community support.

I agree with Mr. Ahern's analysis that it is premature to talk about a Border poll because it is almost provocative and runs the risk of putting people back into their sectarian corner, which we need to avoid. I was heartened to hear Mr. Ahern say that as a former Taoiseach. I ask him to comment on the various strategies we could apply to bring about Irish unity in an incremental, gradual, consensual way with mutual respect. I believe a key element of that is contact. We need many more school trips, club trips, with people from social clubs and football clubs crossing the Border, making normal contact. I say that as a Border person; we do not have enough of that.

Today's discourse is very interesting and relevant. I encounter the following concerns in the Border counties where I come from. We are afraid that we will be thwarted in movement and that we will have a Border we could not cross in the way we do at the moment without being aware of its existence. We are also afraid that our trade will be damaged and our livelihoods and jobs displaced by customs duties that the margins in our businesses at the moment could not accommodate. Those are the primary concerns we have.

We have a very distinguished visitor from the French Embassy in the Gallery. We met some French parliamentarians with her the other night in Cavan. There was a discussion about how the reimposition of a physical border could become a focal point for future dissident activity or the beginning of armed conflict in the future. I ask Mr. Ahern to comment on that.

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