Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Obviously, we had quite an indepth discussion on this earlier this morning, during which we also heard the personal views of Mr. Guy Verhofstadt, MEP. That said, I will outline the current position. There have been three rounds of negotiations to date, with the most recent round concluding on 31 August. As this is the first phase of negotiations, and in line with the agreed sequencing, the focus has been on the withdrawal issues of citizens’ rights, the financial settlement, other more technical separation issues and the issues unique to Ireland. Both the EU and UK have used these early rounds of negotiations to clarify their respective positions, highlighting the areas of agreement and divergence.

Discussions on several issues have been reasonably constructive to date, with some progress being made in the areas of citizens’ rights and the other separation issues. However, it is clear that difficult and complex issues remain, above all in regard to the financial settlement. It is the area in which the least amount of progress has been made. Although the UK has accepted that it will have financial obligations to honour on its departure, it has not yet advanced a more concrete position on the issue and has argued that its obligations are moral, not legal.

It is imperative that sufficient progress is made on this issue, as well as on all of the other withdrawal issues, in order for the European Council to be able to make a decision regarding the opening of parallel discussions on the framework for future relations. It will be in the second phase that trade and sectoral issues, including the question of transitional arrangements, will be discussed. Given that these issues are of crucial importance to Ireland and our economy, the Government wants to see phase 2 begin as quickly as possible. However, unless the UK demonstrates greater and more constructive engagement on these issues in the next two rounds of negotiations, it is unlikely that the European Council on 19-20 October will be in a position to decide on whether sufficient progress has been achieved in the first phase of the negotiations. The Deputy will be aware that the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, will give a speech tomorrow. While we can speculate as to what might be in that speech it is not until it has been made that we will be able to work out what implications it will have on the negotiations due to commence next week.

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