Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with everything the Deputy said. The Border counties are in many ways uniquely affected by Brexit. The Border between Ireland and Northern Ireland will effectively become the land border between the European Union and the United Kingdom. That has created a lot of concern and has given rise to many questions and much anger in Border counties. That is why the Government took the very stubborn position of refusing to move to phase 2 until it was addressed. We got fantastic support and solidarity in that from other member states because they understand why Ireland is so concerned about this, North and South. We also have very clear language on this, which the Deputy will see when the guidelines are published at the end of this week. Those guidelines make it clear that phase 2 will not be allowed to progress unless we get assurance that the UK will follow through on the commitments it made in phase 1. That is really important and should be very reassuring for people.

Some of the ambiguous statements over the weekend on the commitments which were made last Friday have been clarified, both on the EU side and on the British Government side, and that is very welcome.

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