Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Tánaiste. I have a few quick comments in regard to Brexit. It is slightly ironic that the British Prime Minister entitled his letter "A fair and reasonable compromise: UK proposals for a new protocol on Ireland-Northern Ireland". In my view, what the British Government is now putting forward is neither fair nor reasonable, nor even a compromise. It is a considerable reneging on the commitments made by Britain and agreed with the European Union in the 2017 joint report. Paragraph 49 of that report states:

The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North-South cooperation and to its guarantee of avoiding a hard border. Any future arrangements must be compatible with these overarching requirements. [...] In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.

More and more people, particularly in the Border communities and the community where I live, feel that a hard, crash-out Brexit may be less than four weeks away. There is a great fear of that happening, as the Tánaiste is well aware. In regard to the Prime Minister's proposals, the only political party in Northern Ireland supporting them is the Democratic Unionist Party.

Along with political parties in Northern Ireland, we have to be cognisant of the views of representative organisations that have voiced their strong opposition. They include Manufacturing NI, Retail NI and Northern Ireland Retail Consortium. What is proposed at present will damage the Northern Ireland economy and will also damage two decades plus of painstaking political and cross-community progress made under the Good Friday Agreement. What damages the Northern Ireland economy damages our economy as well as, thankfully, both of our economies are so interdependent because of the most valuable development in the all-Ireland economy and the growth of business on an all-Ireland basis. If we think of the stark remarks of Manufacturing NI, it tweeted last night: "Frankly the proposals are worse than No Deal for Northern Ireland businesses." Indeed I gather from some of the limited commentary I listened to at the Tory Party conference that some of the British Ministers saw Brexit as an opportunity for widespread divergence between Britain and the European Union in terms of standards and conditions. Hopefully that will not happen but if such divergence emerged, then communities such as those I represent would be deeply adversely affected. It would result in a clear breach of the Good Friday Agreement.

One comment that we must be mindful of and that I hope will be brought through right to the end of the negotiations was President Juncker's statement in the European Parliament last April that the UK must fully respect the letter and sprit of the Good Friday Agreement. President Juncker's stress on both the letter and the sprit of the agreement is greatly important and significant. I sincerely hope there will be no deviation from that position and that EU solidarity with the Government's position and the position of the Oireachtas will be maintained. I said at our first committee meeting after the Brexit referendum in June 2016 that for a person who grew up in the Troubles and lived in the Border communities, and who has had the privilege of representing two counties with a long land border, the psychology of going back to borders as part of our everyday narrative is terribly damaging. We sincerely hope that does not transpire. We wish the Tánaiste well in the continued difficult task he has in ensuring that Ireland's interests are fully protected.