Mr. Bertie Ahern:

The Deputy knows my view on Brexit. The British electorate made a terrible mistake and they are paying for it every day, and so are the rest of us. I do not want to jump on today's difficulties but somewhere along the line, they should see that. I know they will not change their mind but they should at least see the benefit of closer co-operation and working together with the European Union and stop arguing over things with which they really agree.

I have been around long enough to recall the Single Market in 1987. I was Minister for Labour. In those days, there was a Social Affairs Council, on which I used to cover education, welfare and labour. You were acting on behalf of the Ministers for Social Welfare and Education, as well as the Minister for Labour. The whole argument from the Tory British Government was that we needed better integration and we needed the Single Market; all the things it seems to fundamentally think are crazy.

They were sold a pup. Unfortunately, they bought a pup somewhere along the way. I hope I live to see it but I do think their way out of it is to closely associate with, if not rejoin, the customs union. I do not expect to see them change on the Single Market or other issues, but they never put the customs union to the British people, and they did not have a clue. I had better not say that. It was never the debated, so there was no analysis of it. The first we heard of them withdrawing from the customs union was January 2017, not 2016. That is what has caused the problems, in particular the problem for Northern Ireland.