Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach has given us these answers continuously.

I am basing this on his answers to me on numerous occasions.

As expected, the draft guidelines published by President Tusk place a premium on an orderly, non-disruptive withdrawal. They also place a premium on the Union acting as one. These are important enough statements of principle. I wonder if we will achieve a common understanding of their interpretation and application, which is what this debate should be partly about. If insisting on an orderly approach means that we will not talk about the future relationship with the UK until we have signed off on the current one, then the EU is simply surrendering to that body of opinion that wants to punish Britain by imposing on it some form of economic isolation. If we allow that wing to gain supremacy, then we will also suffer economically. We will suffer proportionately far more than any other EU state. If the EU speaking as one means that Ireland cannot make that point as often and as loudly as is necessary, then this language of cohesion simply disguises what can be bully-boy tactics. I do not see the point of - and I would be minded to reject - the blunt insistence in the draft guidelines that, “So as not to undercut the position of the Union, there will be no separate negotiations between individual member states and the United Kingdom on matters pertaining to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union”. In fact, an arrangement has already been agreed in respect of another member state in the case of the relationship between Spain, the United Kingdom and Gibraltar. I do not see how, in practical terms, there could be anyone better suited to debate future arrangements for the common travel area than the officials and politicians of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. If the negotiating guidelines do not permit such issues to be devolved to the relevant authorities by the main negotiators, resolved bilaterally and referred back, then that is a defect in the guidelines which the Taoiseach should highlight on our behalf. The guidelines should be improved.

It is clear by that the integrity of the Single Market requires free movement of workers. The UK can no longer buy into free movement so it seems inevitable that the Single Market will be closed to it. Closed to it also, unless we come up with some radical solutions, will be the customs union. Ireland will be partitioned by an external frontier of the European Union, with the obligation to police it accordingly.

I have spoken at length on the all-island related issues, and so has the leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Howlin. The Taoiseach is aware of our views; we have voiced them often enough here. We advocate an all-island, all-Ireland approach, taking guidance and using some of the models that are available from the Good Friday Agreement. I have no doubt but that solutions are available, provided there is goodwill and some imagination. To use diplomatic language, there will be talk of "variable geometry". Free movement of workers does not raise exactly the same issues as free movement of British and Irish citizens. They are not the same thing. There are parallels but they are not the same thing. Free movement of goods requires separate consideration again. It may be that some of this, for some purposes, will mean moving the Border into the Irish Sea. It may be that our ports and airports can be more effectively policed than the Irish land frontier ever could. We are all united in this House in not wanting to see a land frontier dividing the island of Ireland. As I have said, I cannot imagine anyone better placed to debate these issues with a view to resolving them than teams from Britain and Ireland. The common travel area and the effect of the EU’s new border on our island are by no means the only issues we have to face, although they are the most obvious. The draft guidelines, with their insistence on a firsts-thing-first approach, manage to postpone consideration of these vital issues. It would be a tremendous waste of time and resources if the negotiating teams spent two years locked in argument over disentangling the United Kingdom from the Union - and from Union rights and obligations - without any attempt to sketch out our future relationship. The Taoiseach should respond to that point because it is vital to how these negotiations go forward and their impact on us.

It is important to provide clarity and legal certainty about the immediate effects of British withdrawal but that requires clarity and certainty about the day after tomorrow as well as tomorrow and about the position in March 2021 as well as in March 2019. It must be remembered that, under Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, these talks are meant to be about negotiating an agreement with the UK, and "Setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union". The future relationship must, from the start and always, be to the forefront at these talks. It cannot be relegated to subsequent consideration, and certainly not to being considered only after bloody-minded infliction of punitive divorce terms and the extraction of a multibillion settlement. That is where there is such doubt about the Taoiseach's negotiating stance and his following, in detail, Mr. Barnier's approach without putting the Irish interest first, frankly. The sort of approach which still seems to appeal to many of our counterparts would do enormous damage to this country and this State. The draft guidelines state, "An overall understanding on the framework for the future relationship could be identified during a second phase of the negotiations". I have the charts in my office, as does the Taoiseach, of how the whole thing is to happen. We all have them. We need to discuss them because there are dangers inherent in the design of the architecture that the Taoiseach is building.

The second phase can only begin once "sufficient progress has been made in the first phase towards reaching a satisfactory agreement on the arrangements for an orderly withdrawal." The authors are seemingly oblivious to the direct contradiction between insisting on this phased approach and the earlier insistence, set out as the second core principle-----

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