Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputies Niall Collins, Martin, Adams and Boyd Barrett raised a number of important questions.

In response to Deputy Collins, there is a €60 billion trade across the Irish Sea every year and, obviously, as the Deputy pointed out, 400,000 jobs at stake here - 200,000 on this side and 200,000 in Britain. These are matters of great concern to Irish exporters, many of whom export heavy equipment to Britain and through Britain to other countries. They make the point that if the British electorate were to vote to leave, this would cause an imposition in terms of paperwork, customs or whatever which would lead to inefficiency, time wasting, a lack of competitiveness and probably a lack of jobs.

Another point is that while people might reflect between our position and Northern Ireland, it actually would be not an Irish border from Dundalk to Derry but a European border because we would be a member of the European Union and Britain would want to withdraw from it, if it made a decision to do so. Obviously, as has been pointed out, that would carry its own implications. It would be a European border as distinct from an Irish border. In respect of Deputy Adams's point, I take that on board.

Deputy Martin raised the question of contingency planning. I do not want to set out a strategy here that the Government or the people in Ireland believe that this will be a negative vote and that the British people will vote to leave the European Union because one must wait and see what the answer will be. However, it is important to state that voting takes place on Thursday and it goes on until 10 p.m. that night. The counting of votes starts immediately. By 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. on Friday, one should be in a position to get a prediction of what might happen here. There are no official exit polls being taken, although I understand many of the trading houses and financial institutions have been closely monitoring the situation. I suppose the movement of sterling in itself would be an indication of the way that they may be thinking. The announcement will be made from Manchester of the overall result. Suffice to say that we have been considering all of this and that from 5 a.m. on Friday, the contingency framework that Ireland would put in place here would be considered.

I want to make it clear again that I hope that the British electorate votes in favour of remaining as a member of the European Union. In the past 48 hours, I feel some sense of a different reflection about this vote from the British electorate and, as I say, I hope they vote to remain. I can assure the Deputies and the party leaders that there is a full-scale contingency programme in place which I hope that we do not have to use. That programme would deal with headline issues, such as the calling of a Government meeting, if that were deemed appropriate, and contact with other leaders in other cities in Europe. However, as Deputy Martin rightly pointed out, there is a need here for level-headedness and a measured response. If the vote were to be to leave, it would not mean that Britain is gone from the European Union on Friday. There is still a two-year window there of negotiations and complex discussions. In respect of our response to such a vote, it would be about the economy, trade, jobs and investment and about whether sterling would remain strong or whether it would collapse, and if so, for how long, what that would mean for Enterprise Ireland and for agencies dealing with small and medium-sized enterprises, and how they would support diversification into the market and beyond through Europe. These are issues that, obviously, would be considered as part of any contingency plan, were such to kick-in.

I agree completely with Deputy Martin on the following point. If this vote is to stay, and I hope it is, there is a lesson here for Europe too. One cannot have a situation where the President of the Commission, Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker, was found to have put in place an infrastructural fund of €400 billion for major projects across Europe and that countries would have the right to draw on that under certain conditions but have the imposition of particular conditions set by EUROSTAT, which is an independent entity, that would mean there would be restrictions on what countries could do, when one can borrow money at a negative or very low interest rate to provide services and facilities for people, such as housing. Approval for a case in Britain has been withdrawn. This does not help the situation. I agree that not everything about the European Union is perfect and that this is an opportunity, if the people in Britain vote to stay, to reflect on the structure of Europe and on when the European Council makes political decisions, how they should be implemented in the interests of their citizens. That is an issue about which I have already written to the President of the Commission and to the leaders, that others are now taking up and that will become an issue for reflection there.

Deputy Boyd Barrett quoted from a document. If I heard the Deputy correctly, I think he stated that there was no choice in respect of the European treaties. The treaties are approved or not by the people in the different countries. We had a number of referenda here where the people voted twice in order to have a deeper reflection on the issue, whether on the Nice treaty, the Lisbon treaty or whatever.

On the Turkish deal for migration, the problem here, to be quite straight with Deputy Boyd Barrett, was how was one to deal with all the people smugglers who have inveigled people to pay serious sums to get on rubber rafts or rickety boats to attempt the crossing to Greece and inevitably end up in the water with many drowned. The intention was that people who would arrive as illegal asylum seekers or refugees would go back to camps in Turkey funded by the European Union but be replaced by legitimate asylum seekers who had moved to Turkey under the refugee or asylum programme. The intention genuinely was around how to deal with the people smugglers who have no care or interest in respect of the many thousands who have drowned in the Mediterranean. That was what the issue was about. I note Deputy Boyd Barrett disagrees with it.

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