Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

CETA, the Canadian deal, took five years to put together and two years to get approval, and still has to go through a number of parliaments. The trading area has become quite complicated.

In response to Deputy Burton, I remain optimistic that the politicians in Northern Ireland will accept their responsibilities and that, in respect of the two main parties, the DUP and Sinn Féin, we will get out of that a functioning executive authority, which is very important for Northern Ireland. I assume that Secretary of State Brokenshire would be able to legislate for that retrospectively when the Commons returned after the Easter recess. I hope that the main parties can put this together and that we will have a functioning Executive. It may hold differences of opinion but at least it could have a common set of objectives for the people that it represents across the North.

In respect of the Border, the position is that, on behalf of the Irish Government and the British Government, we have a clear understanding of there being no return to a hard Border. By that I mean customs posts on the Border as traditionally applied. My reason for being so clear and so strong about this is that it brought with it sectarian violence and all of the issues that arose in the troubled past that we had in Northern Ireland and between Northern Ireland and the Republic. We are not going back there. That is the political groundwork. It is a political challenge to deal with that, not just a matter of mere technology.

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