Dáil debates

Tuesday, 27 September 2016

Ceisteanna - Questions

Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements

4:10 pm

Photo of Enda KennyEnda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is a great deal of confusion and uncertainty about the entirety of this situation. The Leave campaign were in a state of shock when the result was announced. I did not like the result but we must deal with it.

On the question of when the Prime Minister is likely to trigger Article 50, from speaking to Secretaries of State Brokenshire and Davis and indeed the Prime Minister herself, under the law it is a matter entirely for the Prime Minister to do so. The feeling in a European context, when the original date for the appointment of the new Prime Minister was to be in October, was that one would need some time to reflect on what it is that one wanted to do and then trigger the article. My impression is that it will be towards the end of January or February before Article 50 is moved. I cannot confirm that as it is not my business but that is the impression that I get.

However, there are, as Deputy Martin says, different views within the Tory Party, and the Prime Minister has had to comment on a number of those in recent days. What sort of agreement does Britain want? It wants a deal which, from its point of view, protects its interests, and that will be unlike the Norwegian deal or the Swiss deal or whatever. What it wants is a British deal. We must see that our interests are protected. There is a great deal of contact going on between officials because before Article 50 is moved it will be necessary for the British side to be able to know the areas in great detail that will become a central focus of those negotiations. I assume that they are now identifying what those areas and starting to work through them. From our point of view, our senior officials will continue to work very closely with them in that regard.

The Deputy is right to mention agriculture, and the Minister, Deputy Creed, has been in regular contact with his Northern Ireland counterpart, Michelle McIlveen, MLA. He will travel to London shortly. As I said, I have asked every Minister before the next North-South Ministerial Council to have in in-depth conversation with their counterparts and their officials about what the impact will be including on areas such as milk production, dairy products in general, beef, pork and all the other agri-sector issues that are of concern North-South and South-North on a regular basis.

I have met representatives of companies here who are now seeing the impact of the currency fluctuation where prices are due to increase. Given that there is generally a lag of two or three months, those prices will take effect in Britain in November and December, which is a difficult time in terms of retail for Britain. The impact on some agri-plants here has already been evident. There will be an increasing challenge for the British consumer because of currency fluctuations and therefore price increases in meeting all of that. We need to be very careful about these aspects.

I hope in the context of the all-island conversation we will have, there will be real contributions about where this will go. When will it be finalised? It took about three years to get Greenland extracted from the European Union and there are not too many people living in Greenland. This could run much longer than people might imagine. Although there seemed to be an impression at the European Council meeting that this should certainly be done before the next European Parliament elections in 2019, these things are very difficult to predict.

We will prepare as assiduously as we can and we will keep everybody here informed of that because it is important that we have the views of the Irish Parliament in protecting our particular interest, both continuing with the United Kingdom in the links we have and our specific relationship as a member of the European Union.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.