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

Last Friday in the joint report from the negotiators of the European Union and the UK Government, both sides restated their commitment to avoiding a hard border, describing it as an overarching requirement of the negotiations. We have also secured a firm commitment that no physical border infrastructure or related checks and controls will exist and I am therefore satisfied that in all eventualities a hard border will be avoided and there will be no return to the borders of the past.

It has been the Government’s consistent position that the best possible outcome for Northern Ireland and east-west trade would be for the UK to stay in the Single Market and customs union. This is ultimately a decision for the United Kingdom and while we hope they change their approach, the UK’s stated position is that it will leave the Single Market and customs union when leaving the European Union. However, the agreement reached last Friday not only provides a guarantee that there will be no hard border under any circumstances but it also spells out for the first time how this will be achieved. In the event that it is not possible to resolve the border issue as part of a wider EU-UK future relationship agreement, which has always been the Irish Government’s preference, or through specific solutions, paragraph 49 of the report states that "in the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support North-South co-operation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 agreement."

It has also been agreed that any agreements put in place will be accompanied by effective mechanisms to ensure implementation and oversight. This is an important fail-safe, recognising that to avoid a hard border, no matter how it is achieved, Northern Ireland or the UK as a whole will need to remain fully aligned with those rules of the customs union and the Single Market which underpin North-South co-operation and the all-island economy. There is a great deal of work still to be done on the Irish-specific issues in order to ensure that all of the commitments set out in the joint report are implemented. I am therefore pleased that work on Irish issues will continue to be taken forward in a distinct strand of the negotiations in phase two. This will ensure that they will not be overlooked at any point in the next phase. All of those points were reinforced yesterday when I met Mr. Michel Barnier for over an hour.

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