Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is clearly the most important Council summit an Irish Head of Government will attend since our accession to EEC membership. To judge by the previous comments, it is building up to feel rather like the time Michael Collins went to London. Lots of people are obviously getting the knives and the pickaxes ready. On behalf of everyone in Ireland, I wish the Taoiseach well at the summit. It is probably the most important summit for Ireland in the 44 years of our membership. That membership has been valuable. Notwithstanding issues with the EU, it has been in the best interests of the whole island of Ireland, North and South.

The Brexit negotiating mandate is about our vital national interests and the vital interests of this island as a whole. Our first priority must be to protect the political and institutional arrangements established by the Good Friday Agreement. It is disappointing, to put it mildly, that there is still no obvious sign that the Government has settled on its policies towards these negotiations. Apart from a glossy sort of Ladybird guide to Brexit that would not detain any serious reader for long, there is as yet nothing published by the Government on its approach to Brexit. In fact, it states that it will not publish anything approaching a substantive position paper until 29 April, the very day the European Council meets and before this Dáil will have reassembled to have an opportunity to speak and address that particular paper.

See this speech in context