Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach may have said when he will publish the consolidated paper and I may have missed that. That has to be done in sufficient time to allow those of us who want to persuade the Government of the need to make amendments to the draft EU guidelines to do so because, as I said during Leaders' Questions, we are not satisfied that these guidelines are clear enough or that they go far enough. It remains my position - I do not mean this to be offensive - that the Taoiseach and the Government do not understand the huge shift in the relationships within the island and between the two islands since the Good Friday Agreement. The British Government is not just able to make declarations at this time without the Government having co-equal status to deal with it on that basis.

The Taoiseach earlier differentiated between the case of Gibraltar and that of the North. Of course, there is a difference. The difference is that the Spanish Government believes that Gibraltar is part of its sovereign territory. Whether it is or not is another issue but that is what the government believes. However, our Government has to believe, as many of the people of the island believe, that the island of Ireland should have territorial sovereignty and in the processes set out under the Good Friday Agreement, we have a responsibility - the Government specifically has a constitutional responsibility - to advance that objective. On Saturday last, on a radio programme with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, he reminded us that Fine Gael is The United Ireland Party. Let us see some evidence of that.

We need to have the time, the forum and the ability to look again at what the Government will bring forward and the space that will allow us to make specific amendments in order that we can influence the outcome. Will the Taoiseach give a commitment that he will do all of this in that spirit?

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