Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A number of existing entities deal with some of this, such as the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, the British-Irish Council and, as the Deputy said, the North-South Ministerial Council. It is important to say that I want to restructure the Department of the Taoiseach in the sense of forming a new Cabinet committee, which will be chaired by me with principal Ministers to attend and those, if necessary, beyond that; to strengthen the numbers in the different missions we have abroad in Rome, London, Berlin, Paris and so on; and to take in extra staff to the relevant Departments, either by contract or by moving from one Department to the other. We will transfer some staff from the Department of the Taoiseach back to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in order to have a more specific focus in the Department of the Taoiseach, assisted by a second Secretary General and staff to focus on Brexit and related issues.

The Deputy mentioned an Anglo-Irish forum. This is worth considering, but we have a lot of contact at the moment. Senior officials are meeting. Deputy Martin raised this question already. I will look for an early meeting with new Prime Minister May. In respect of a Northern Ireland summit, these are important issues. It is becoming very clear to Northern Ireland representatives what the implications of Brexit might mean, depending on the eventual outcome.

On the question of the implications in terms of the reunification of Ireland, we are co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement. That contains the elements for consideration of whether that might be given consideration, triggered by a future Secretary of State if it was felt there was a majority in favour in that regard. The meetings that have now taken place with some Ministers here on a cross-Border basis are beginning to be understood by many of the MLAs. The costs could be quite considerable, as will the deficit in infrastructure and planning for future years. If, for instance, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform needs to provide moneys for project X or Y, if there will be a decline or withdrawal of European moneys we cannot front-load it from here with no compensation coming from the other side. These are all things that will have to be teased out.

Clearly we will have to wait and see first what the British want. Do they want a Norwegian, Swiss, Canadian or Singaporean strategy?

What is the intent of the new Prime Minister? I hope to be able to get an early meeting with her to discuss some of this.

It is important that we should have the capacity to draw on some of the experience that exists here on Europe and the United Kingdom. I would not want to set up a statutory council, but there are people around who have had great experience in Europe over the years and have dealt with Britain and Europe. They have a lot of experience on which we can draw. There were some discussions about a consultation process on an all-island basis, and while particular parties can have different points of view I have worked very well with First Minister Foster. I was in Enniskillen in each of the past five years for Remembrance Sunday. It is necessary that I, on behalf of the Government, understand the feelings and challenges of Northern Ireland business and how people are looking at the outcome of the vote and the consequence of Brexit for them. While we do not have a negotiating mandate down here, it is important for them to understand that we have an interest, obviously, because of the Good Friday Agreement and North-South association. These matters will have to be teased out in great detail.

If we have a situation where we have a country remaining in the EU, which is Ireland, and the United Kingdom leaves, we will have some capacity to monitor goods travelling through from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland, that is from an EU country to a country that is not in the EU. I do not want to see any hard border or the checkpoints that were there for many years. We do not want to see that.

There is a range of issues, and I will brief Members on them tomorrow, in respect of the changes we will make to the structure in the Department of the Taoiseach to deal with Brexit and its consequences and beefing up those things. In that sense, I know First Minister Sturgeon put together a capacity for international advice. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has already brought back all of the ambassadors and we have a lot of contact and a lot of connection there. We do not need too many entities, but it is important that the wide range and spectrum of advice and information is available to us and it will be. All of this is moving and the next step is for the Prime Minister to say-----

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