Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----that does not apply to all things; it applies to regulations that may give rise to a border. I refer to the all-island economy and North-South co-operation. It is not all things and we do not have regulatory alignment on all things with Northern Ireland at present. There is a specific paragraph on rights reaffirming the commitment to ensure there is no diminution of the safeguards, equality of opportunity and other protections that currently exist under European law in Northern Ireland.

The jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, ECJ, can apply only to countries that accept its jurisdiction. If the United Kingdom does not accept its jurisdiction then that cannot apply, although there will be an eight-year period as that changes. I am not sure if that is a breach of the Good Friday Agreement but I will look into that.

Brexit is a dynamic process. It is very hard to be definitive in any answer I give because it changes every day. I imagine it will change tomorrow and probably on Friday as well. That is the nature of what is happening and of these negotiations.

There is no date set or period agreed for the transition phase but people are talking in terms of a transition phase of two years. That is also a matter for negotiation. It is intended to focus in quarter 1 of 2018 on the withdrawal agreement and the transition phase rather than trade because it is accepted that both sides will have to prepare quite a lot for the talks on the new arrangements between the UK and the EU, which involve more than trade. They concern other matters such as security, defence, aviation, EURATOM, you name it. Our objective is to make sure that what was agreed last week in the joint report is fully reflected in the withdrawal agreement, which will be an international agreement and will be legally binding.

I wish to reassure Deputy Burton that she is wrong. The Government is not ambivalent about neutrality and the permanent structured co-operation arrangement, PESCO, is nothing to do with my impression of myself. The Deputy is much more concerned about myself than I am but I will leave that for another day. We are talking part in PESCO because it is in Ireland's interest. That is the only reason for signing up to it. We are doing so on an opt-in opt-out basis because we see that it is in Ireland's interest to opt in on certain issues. An obvious one is cybersecurity, with which even large member states with lots of resources have difficulty dealing. The Government firmly believes that as a small country of 4.5 million people that is a digital country with many big digital and information technology, IT, operations we should be part of Europe-wide action on that. Another area is training. As our soldiers take part in international and EU missions in Africa and elsewhere, it makes sense that we train together and are able to work together in those missions. That makes our troops safer.

Denmark has decided for now not to take part in PESCO. It is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO. The other non-NATO members, namely, Sweden, Finland and Austria, however, have decided to take part. We are among four neutral countries that have signed up to PESCO.

In terms of skill sets, as we prepare for phase 2 that is dynamic. We have a lot of expertise in-house but it is acknowledged that we will need outside expertise as well. We will consider that over the next couple of weeks. We have beefed up our permanent representation in Brussels and for example, the number of staff members from the Office of the Attorney General there has risen from one to five. This is in recognition of the fact that we are going to be the only full common law country – Malta and Cyprus are partial common law countries – left in the EU and we need to take account of that and other matters.

On the reform of the eurozone and the EU's agenda, I outlined my views on this in a speech I made at the launch of the public consultation on the future of Europe with the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, and the Minister of State at that Department, Deputy McEntee. I made that speech in the Science Gallery some weeks ago. It did not get much attention or notice but I did outline in some detail my views on the future of Europe and how we should reform the eurozone.

The Government's position on tax is, as it always has been, that tax is a matter of national sovereignty, that member states and their parliaments should set national taxes and that those national taxes should fund national budgets. It is also our view that big corporations should pay their tax when and where they are owed and in full. Ireland is not a tax haven. It has no interest in being a tax haven nor does it want to be seen as a tax haven.

See this speech in context