Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and thank her for giving us the exact position as of now. I join with her in congratulating Commissioner Hogan on his hearings on Monday and his success.

I believe that we have not reached the eleventh hour just yet and, therefore, we should not upset ourselves. I am not saying that the Minister of State has done so and she has been very factual. We have had papers or non-papers and so on. A lot of what we are hearing on this side may rely on leaks but she may have more information than some of us have about the papers. I wonder if they are not somewhat of an opening or ongoing gambit on the part of the British Prime Minister. We must remember that he is playing to his own audience in Manchester, as we know at the moment. As the Minister of State has stated, our protection of the backstop and the Good Friday Agreement is rock solid, which of course we all welcome.

Is the British Prime Minister running down the clock, so to speak? He has said he will obey the law, and there is the Benn Act, so will we reach a stage where he will seek an extension from Brussels? Britain, as much as Ireland, needs to get into that transition period of two years or however long it will take to work out a full and proper trade agreement. We all hope that common sense will prevail and that discussions will continue to take place. We have to travel in hope rather than despair but I fully accept everything the Minister of State said about the preparedness and the preparations being put in place for a no-deal Brexit. We have to be ready for that if it happens but given the state of the British Parliament and what it has decided already, and the Benn Act, I cannot see it happening.