Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

"Each time great events and crises sunder the closed horizon of waiting, sweeping away the boredom, they thereby disturb the illusion of a future in which the main features were thought to be fixed but this ought not to surprise us because reality is fundamentally unpredictable." Those words were written by an adviser to a former President of the European Commission prior to Brexit and elections in other parts of the world that have been cause for such reflection in Ireland and elsewhere. They reflect that the order in which our country is located is now slowly changing and shifting. The nature and form of the EU is shifting and the nature and form of political debates in other parts of the world is beginning to change as well. This fundamentally matters to Ireland because we are an open trading economy. We import and export twice the value of our national income each year. These kind of changes for economic and political reasons have such a profound effect on Ireland.

Deputy Breathnach accurately outlined the different challenges this will pose for different parts of our island and different sectors of the economy. This is a crucial area in which the Government will now have to continue its engagement in light of what we have achieved in the European mandate. The Sinn Féin Deputies raised a question about the status of Gibraltar and I ask it two questions in return. Can they explain to me how that would be consistent with the Good Friday Agreement? How would the reaction this issue has prompted in the UK and Spain be helpful if it was replicated on this island? For a party that pretends to be such custodians of the Good Friday Agreement, I would like an explanation at some point in the future as to how the deployment of such a mechanism would be in the spirit of the Agreement. Given the consequences it is having in the political debate in England and Spain, how do Sinn Féin Deputies think that would be helpful for the security of this island? For Deputy Nolan to stand here and claim successive Governments have abandoned the North and have not tried to help-----

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