Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have probably misread the British view on Brexit. Certainly, there was a view across the board that David Cameron would deliver on his proposals. He failed to deliver and is a man of the past. Last week, there was a significant build-up to Theresa May's speech in Florence. While the speech was loaded with rhetoric, it seemed very short on specific detail.

That is frustrating and difficult for anyone trying to follow what direction Britain will go in this regard. It did not reassure and, more importantly, did not address any of the issues facing Ireland. This is hardly surprising considering the British Government has consistently failed to address the key issues of avoiding a border, citizens’ rights and protecting the Good Friday Agreement. No matter what angle one comes from, it is clear Brexit is bad for Ireland. There is no such thing as a good Brexit for Ireland, its people and its economy, North and South.

Sinn Féin's position is crystal clear. The entire island of Ireland must remain within the European Union. The Good Friday Agreement must be protected in all of its parts by the British and Irish Governments, as well as by the European Union. We believe, as does the House, that this can be achieved through a special designated status for the North in the European Union.

The threat to the Good Friday Agreement can be also averted if it is incorporated in full in a protocol in the British withdrawal agreement. I urge the Minister to examine this as a possible solution. There are solutions to many of the challenges facing us but imagination is needed. I am not sure if that imagination and those solutions will come from Europe. Many of them will have to come from ourselves. We are the ones who will have to step up to the plate with those proposals. It is clear little progress has been made in preventing the return of an economic border on the island. It is imperative to protect the Good Friday Agreement in all of its parts.

It is a concern that the Government, the EU and Britain are now all talking about avoiding a physical border on the island rather than avoiding border checks of any kind. Border checkpoints of any kind on the island, be they of goods, services or passports, must not be countenanced in any way. To build peace in Ireland, we need to remove borders, both physical and psychological. The Taoiseach must be prepared to use the Government’s EU veto against moving on to the trade talks unless the British Government comes up with detailed plans to protect the previously negotiated agreements and ensures there is no EU frontier across the island of Ireland.

Brexit will affect the whole of Ireland, not just the North. It will have a negative effect on companies in Ireland which export to Britain, but also on those which use Britain as a land bridge to ensure their products can reach other EU countries. We need not just to look at the percentage of our exports to Britain but also the volume. Mention has been made recently of the figures of 15% and 36% in this regard. Many of our exports to Britain come from labour-intensive industries. If they are lost, it will have a significant impact on jobs and local economies. To adequately respond to Brexit challenges, the Government also needs to update infrastructure, particularly roads and ports, and other significant capital spending. Again, there seems to be no preplanning on this.

Sinn Féin opposed the EU fiscal treaty which imposed harsh fiscal rules on EU countries. It is clear that to adequately respond to the challenges of Brexit, Ireland needs a derogation from the fiscal rules. The Minister must urgently seek as a priority the relaxation of the fiscal rules for Ireland. We need to start articulating this position loudly and clearly across Europe.

Yesterday, I attended a meeting of Committee A of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which deals with sovereign matters of relevance for both Britain and Ireland. Again, the committee examined Brexit. The Norwegian ambassador to Ireland gave some interesting insights into Norway's imaginative and unique border arrangements with Sweden and Russia. She spoke of customs co-operation and travel arrangements. However, the clear evidence is that Norway is not Ireland. While we can examine all sorts of arrangements, Ireland is not Norway.

One theme coming from these meetings we are attending is that there is a complete lack of any preparation by British and Irish companies, and more worryingly by both Governments, on the challenges facing us with Brexit. I know my Sinn Féin colleagues will discuss the threat to rural Ireland from Brexit later. However, they are significant and the Government must be more proactive in protecting and supporting rural communities. The point was made yesterday that Brexit may not impact the east coast, but the further west one goes, the more difficulties people will face.

One concern to me about Brexit is the serious threat it poses for health care provision on this island. We all know partition has been a disaster for this island, not least in the area of health care. It makes no sense to have two different health care systems on this island. Instead, we should have one truly public Irish national health service. It should be a service to provide health care on the basis of need, not on who one is, where one lives or how much money one earns. It must be a system funded by progressive taxation. There was a hope the Good Friday Agreement would help develop the whole area of health care with huge strides. That, however, has not happened. The majority of people across Ireland realise health care must be developed on an all-Ireland basis. The growth of shared services is an acknowledgement that it makes sense to operate health care on an all-Ireland basis. The success of shared services to date is living proof of that. However, Brexit could derail all of this positive progress. Brexit means that not only our current shared services are under threat but future services are too, as well as being reliant on negotiations. We have worked too hard improving such co-operation and services to let a Tory British Government fixated on privatising health care derail all of this and cripple the potential of improving public health provision on this island. Protecting our health services from Brexit and building a truly public all-Ireland health service should be a priority.

We must also look at major reform of the EU. Sinn Féin remains deeply critical of the EU and the direction it has taken. We know many people are critical of the EU, which is expressing itself in various ways, not all positive, and in elections across Europe. The Europe we want to see would be more democratic, demilitarised and a peaceful Union which would embrace economic and social justice, international solidarity while working to end poverty. However, the European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, recently outlined the solution to these issues facing the EU, stating we should just carry on doing the same, only faster with less democratic oversight. He wants a new EU president, EU finance minister and an EU army. Inexplicably, no one, except an unknown source in Iveagh House, offered any comment on this disturbing and alarming speech. Several countries spoke up but there was a lack of leadership from Ireland. If the EU follows this path, it is heading towards a cliff and inevitable breakup. It will throw a lifeline towards the far right across Europe, which is already growing at an alarming rate in some countries. While Juncker’s European model might be shared by some of the elites in Europe, it will inevitably lead to the breakup of the European Union and a realignment of European politics as we know it.

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