Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are all agreed that the outworking of Brexit will have profound effects on all sections of our people, the economy and agreements, especially the Good Friday Agreement. In arguing for the North to be designated special status within the European Union, Sinn Féin has put forward a viable alternative to the impact of Brexit on Ireland. This reflects the position of the Dáil as well, although the Government position does not. We have consistently advocated that the Government should take a stronger position on Brexit.

We made detailed submissions to the Taoiseach before and after the draft EU negotiating guidelines were published. Following our recent criticism, the Taoiseach advised us that the Government had submitted further wording in advance of the recent meeting of the 27 EU member states. However, the Dáil has not been told what these amendments were. I can find only one minor amendment in the agreed text. That is what the Government got into the text. What it did not get was a commitment that there would be no agreement on the Border or on the status of the North without a separate and binding agreement between the Irish Government and Britain. This would have been similar to the position secured by Spain in respect of Gibraltar. I suspect we did not get this because we did not ask for it. Irish unity was not mentioned in the initial draft guidelines. Again, I suspect that the Government did not ask for it. It is not in the guidelines that came out of the EU Council either. Did the Government even try to have it included? The Taoiseach refuses to deny or confirm this. Instead, he has achieved a commitment to flexible and imaginative solutions with the aim of avoiding a hard border. This is aspirational wishy-washy rhetoric in a world of substantive and difficult negotiations and it is not good enough.

Sinn Féin believes that the interests of citizens on this island require that the North be designated a special status within the EU. In this way there would be no European frontier on the island. All of Ireland would remain within the European Union and the North would have full access to the EU, including to the Common Agricultural Policy and the PEACE programmes.

A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, could you ask the Taoiseach to keep it down a little if he is going to have a conversation?

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