Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Like my colleague, I had to vote in the Seanad. I welcome the ambassador, his colleague and other officials and representatives of other embassies in Ireland.

I will represent the committee on Monday in Vienna at the COSAC meeting. I will be fully briefed on the priorities of the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. That is the first item on the agenda. Ms Karoline Edtstadler, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior will be there. I look forward to going to Vienna again. It is a beautiful city. I have been there before.

The ambassador is very experienced and is coming at a very crucial time. He has long experience of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, so he will be in a very good position to assist and guide us in the very difficult waters we will be travelling through.

I looked at the attendance list for the COSAC meeting. I hope the United Kingdom is not pulling out prematurely from participation in the European Union. Will the ambassador confirm that? He might not have the list but I do not see any attendees from the House of Commons or the House of Lords. It will be very disappointing. I was hoping to meet our colleagues there. Maybe the list has not been finalised. I am not quite sure about it but from the list that was circulated I cannot see the participation of the United Kingdom. The COSAC meeting is a great opportunity to meet and discuss the future with our colleagues from the United Kingdom even though we are not negotiators. Mr. Barnier is negotiating on behalf of the European Union and Mr. David Davis is in charge for the United Kingdom. I am subject to correction. My view of it was cursory. It has happened before. During the previous presidency there were no representatives of the United Kingdom Government there. I hope it is the case that they have not finalised their numbers yet. Normally there would be embassy representatives there too.

The next six months will be crucial. There will be a crucial meeting in Chequers on Friday. We hope the British Government will come up with very reasonable requests in the negotiations. We do not want to go through the process but we are very concerned because there will be collateral damage as a result of what is happening at the moment. As an island off an island off mainland Europe, we are the most affected. I will not go into that detail. We will discuss it on Monday in Vienna.

I welcome the ambassador to the meeting and thank him for coming. I am sure we will have other dialogue in the next six months of the Presidency. I have no doubt Austria will take a very practical approach to the Brexit negotiations to assist us in our situation. The ambassador will be able to convey to Vienna the reality on the ground. The ambassador has experience of the Northern Ireland situation, the Border, the 500 km and the 300 openings. There is no better man to represent the views of Ireland to the Austrian Government than the ambassador.