Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, the Taoiseach provided a useful briefing for all leaders in Government Buildings. Both the verbal and written presentation set out the strategic issues that needed to be addressed as a matter of urgency. What is less clear to me since is the end game. What is Ireland's objective, now we have had a chance for reflection?

The Taoiseach stated yesterday that senior officials from the United Kingdom engaged with senior officials from the Irish Government in recent days. What exactly was the framework in which that engagement happened? Did the Irish team specify the desired outcome of the new position and whether the United Kingdom and Ireland could work in common effort to achieve those objectives?

What is the Taoiseach's view on the timing of the invocation of Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty? As Deputy Martin stated, there are various signals coming from leaders in Europe and those we look to for leadership. In short, the attitude of European Commission President Juncker is, "Here's your hat, what's your hurry?" The attitude of my socialist colleague, Mr. Martin Schulz, in the European Parliament was not an awful lot better, initially at least. There was a little more measured response from President Tusk. We need a specific attitude from Ireland as the strategic issues are so important for this country and the people of this entire island. We must know what our objective will be and how we will work towards it. From an Irish perspective, when would be the optimal invocation of Article 50? This is entirely a matter for the United Kingdom but we should have a view with respect to our interaction with good friends in the United Kingdom as to when Article 50 should be invoked.

As I indicated yesterday, should we in the interim work on a bilateral strategy between Ireland and the UK before we engage in a trilateral way between Ireland, the UK and the European Union to see what is the best common outcome for the people of Britain and Ireland? I have not got external legal advice on this matter but my reading of Article 50 is that the framework for negotiations will be set by the Council. It indicates the negotiations will be conducted by the Union and I am not sure what that means. It has been said it is overseen by the Council but who does the negotiations? Is that clear yet? What inputs can we have as of right into those negotiations because our strategic interest is so much greater than virtually everybody else's, aside from the United Kingdom itself?

The interim arrangements were touched on again by Deputy Martin. The negotiations are ongoing on planning the expenditure of the INTERREG moneys that we negotiated in government. I negotiated the PEACE IV moneys as there was no great enthusiasm from the British to have a new programme. During the negotiations for the multi-annual financial framework, Britain wanted to reduce expenditure and did not want to be seen to advocate additional expenditure in any area. The Taoiseach did much work on this and he knows the British attitude was that while they would not obstruct work on PEACE IV, they would not be overt advocates for it. What is the state of the projects now? Deputy Adams would be familiar with many of them. It was expected they would be funded over the next seven years, but will that now happen? Is there any interim arrangement or is it all on hold until the Brexit negotiations conclude?

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