Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as a chuid oibre go dtí seo. I have a couple of questions for the Minister of State and a couple of thoughts. He is right to acknowledge the huge work that has gone into getting us to the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. It was a massive achievement in very difficult circumstances. The support we as a country have got from the European Commission since the Brexit referendum in 2016 has been immense; it has effectively been hand in glove. The Minister of State is also right to separate the protocol from the triggering of Article 16. I will discuss the protocol later. The support and co-operation from the Commission makes what happened with the triggering of Article 16 on 29 January even more unbelievable and harder to get our heads around. The triggering apparently happened without our knowledge. Apparently it happened without the knowledge of the Irish nominee to the Commission. Given that the European Commission has shown a massive understanding of the sensitives of relationships and of the protocol and the background to it, has the Minister of State learned anything in the intervening period about why it was triggered, who ordered its triggering and why the European Commission saw fit to trigger it without consulting the Irish Government in advance?

The Minister of State referred to the meeting with the Commission and the British Government last week. The meetings were positive. I understand that there is to be a meeting today between European Commission officials and Irish representatives and that proposals to manage this issue going forward are to be tabled. When it comes to our neutrality we have a triple lock. We need some kind of a lock mechanism such that in future Article 16 can never be triggered without the agreement of the Government or without consultation with it. The Minister of State is closer to this than we are and he has seen at close hand the damage done by the triggering, including the damage done to trust. It is being reported on RTÉ today that we will get some sort of vague comfort blanket assurances that this will not happen again, that there will be consultation with the Government around legislation and that if there is a problem, it will be put through Commissioner McGuinness's cabinet. Instead, we should have something substantial, an actual formal process that would involve the Government in a formal way rather an ad hocone. I genuinely think the damage done by this triggering has been so immense that we now need a process to ensure it does not happen again.

On the protocol, I absolutely condemn the violence and threats being issued to people doing their jobs in the last few weeks. It brings us back to a much darker time. On the general matter of EU-Britain trade, we are currently running at volumes that are around 50% of what they were this time last year. Revenue has declared 1.8 million custom declarations in January alone, which is more than the total for 2020. Who in the Government is co-ordinating the response so that we will be ready when trade returns to full volumes? Can the Minister of State say we will not have any major difficulties or delays with goods going to Britain and coming in from there when trade is hopefully restored to full volumes? The lower volumes at the moment are presumably due to Brexit stockpiling before December and to the pandemic. Who in the Government is going to co-ordinate this to ensure there is no disruption to supplies either between here and Britain or the reverse in terms of the food industry, etc.?