Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Now that phase one is over and as we head into the most difficult part of the Brexit negotiations, it is important to review where we are and the key challenges which we face. The first point we should all recognise is that Brexit is not some distant issue; it is already under way and causing damage. Firms in various parts of this island are suffering because of a combination of uncertainty and the chronic weakness of the British currency that is directly linked to Brexit. In light of the instability in Westminster, the major contradictions in the agreement and the deterioration of key relationships which has been exposed in recent weeks, we need a lot more reflection. It would be an enormous error to believe that anything is settled. Equally, given the existing damage since the referendum and the further damage likely due to the UK's confirmed decision to leave the customs union and Single Market, Ireland has a wider and urgent agenda, much of which has seen little or no progress.

From well before the Brexit referendum was held, Fianna Fáil has been actively engaged in addressing the implications of a decision by the UK to leave the European Union. It has been a priority for us since 2013 when David Cameron announced that a referendum would be held on the topic and it has been addressed in detail by us in an ongoing series of speeches and manifestos since then. During the recent instability caused by the Government's resistance to basic political accountability, Fianna Fáil took action to ensure that there would be no doubt about Ireland's position on Brexit.

I wrote to the lead negotiators for the Commission and the Parliament to state very clearly there is a wide consensus in Ireland on Brexit which was reflected in the Government’s negotiating position. I further stated there was full political agreement that written guarantees were required from the United Kingdom before proceeding to phase two could be considered. Subsequent contacts have confirmed it was a reassurance that irrespective of events, Ireland’s core position would not change.

When one steps back from the breathless commentary of recent days and looks at the current state of the Brexit project, it is striking how the core analysis which we set out in 2013 remains valid. The British Government has still not reconciled itself to the fact that ceasing to be a member will lose it many of the benefits of being a member. Brexit remains a deep and urgent threat to Ireland. It remains a move by London away from the principle of rules-based international co-operation. Most fundamentally, the core Brexit challenge remains how to limit its damage because there is no possible scenario where there is no damage. As of last week, the worst-case scenarios appear a lot less likely. However, what has been agreed is a statement of important principles which is very broad and contains within it clearly contradictory statements. The status of trade within Ireland and between these islands is very far from settled. The negotiating position of the Government early this year was that the fate of Ireland should largely be divorced from the final status discussions. While the statements are important, Ireland's fate remains integrally bound up in the wider negotiation and this carries with it inherent risks. These risks may have been unavoidable but it serves no real purpose to ignore them.

The British Government has repeated the statements made by its leaders at various points during the past year and a half. It has said it will protect the Good Friday Agreement and that there will be no disruption of cross-border activity. However, it has also confirmed that the United Kingdom as a whole will leave both the customs union and the Single Market and has added a new point that Northern Ireland will not be treated any differently. The broad statements of principle made concerning Ireland are unquestionably welcome but they are very far from being a final statement on the matter. The specific statement entrenching the idea that Northern Ireland is no different from the rest of the United Kingdom is not only not welcome, but it is a reversal of over 40 years of policy and practice.

President Donald Tusk described the phase one deal as "the easy part" of the negotiations because it is a general agreement. There has been a lot of back and forth in recent days about the legal enforceability of this political agreement. The current status is that the British Government says it will be legally enforceable as part of the exit treaty. It is hard to disagree with this interpretation. Everything must be done to hold it to the agreed principles, but please let us not pretend we have anything we can use to walk into a courtroom and demand the maintenance of an open border.

Before speaking further on Ireland-specific measures, I should say that we warmly welcome the agreement on the points about the rights of European Union and United Kingdom citizens post-Brexit and a methodology for computing the United Kingdom’s financial responsibilities that will protect the current multi-annual financial framework. Even more importantly, we welcome the formal acknowledgement by both sides of the continued right of current and future residents of Northern Ireland to claim full European Union citizenship as per the Good Friday Agreement. This was a matter we raised soon after the referendum and which we lobbied to be included in the Commission’s negotiating guidelines following the failure to address it in the Council’s formal round one document. I acknowledge this progress.

This week’s summit is likely to unanimously and without significant difficulty endorse the recommendation to move to phase two of the Brexit negotiations. This is the right decision. The agreement for at least a two-year transition period which will most likely involve no significant change is a welcome inching away from the cliff edge and extremely important. The current most likely scenario, as confirmed by Michel Barnier yesterday, is that any exit treaty which can be agreed before the end of next year will contain a framework for a trade agreement rather than a negotiated text. As such, it is an issue which will not be settled until beyond next year and the eventual trade agreement will be subject to potential revision over time.

There are four general areas where we believe it falls to our Government to act with urgency. First, we need to address the core contradiction in the text between the commitment to no border in Ireland and the United Kingdom’s uniform exit from the Single Market and customs union. As we saw yesterday, the Taoiseach is continuing his predecessor’s policy of refusing to say what he means by maintaining an open border beyond the issue of no checks at the Border. There are many scenarios where continued regulatory alignment will still involve significant practical barriers to trade. The core British position remains that they want full access to European markets while limiting regulatory compliance to industry-specific matters and without the European Court of Justice and Commission maintaining their current legal powers. This is incompatible with the core European Union position.

So what happens to Ireland, particularly in the new context where the refusal to treat Northern Ireland as a special case has been elevated to the level of a core principle in London? We must proceed on the basis of showing how Northern Ireland could maintain unhindered access to the customs union and Single Market in any likely scenario. Otherwise we will remain fully hostage to the overall negotiations, the outcome of which is still deeply uncertain. We should also remember that the leadership of the British Labour Party is currently enforcing a policy in the House of Commons which is of little practical comfort to Ireland.

The second action we need is a far more urgent push to have the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive re-established and working. Their absence has been Ireland’s greatest handicap in recent months. I will address this and other Northern Ireland-specific Brexit issues in more detail during this evening’s statements.

The third action we need is to move on to implement proposals to help businesses and communities deal with the dislocation that is already under way. The urgency of diversifying both products and markets is becoming more acute by the day. We need a range of supports, many of which require a temporary change in European Union rules, and we need to understand that actions to date are not even as good as being a sticking plaster. Perhaps the Minister of State will indicate to the House later whether it is the Government's intention to publish impact studies on the various sectoral areas. Our understanding was that sectoral studies had been carried out and that studies would be published on the different sectors such as agrifood, tourism and so on. It would be useful to get clarification from the Minister of State on that point.

Finally, we need to address the serious deterioration of vital relationships which have in the past been so central to progress on the island and with Britain. In recent months our officials have worked diligently and as effectively as ever in the background, but at political level things have at times reached the level of leaders talking at each other through newspaper headlines. The basic relationships of trust between political leaders on a north-south and east-west basis have to be renewed. Otherwise we risk constant roadblocks in addressing the highly complex bilateral issues which have to be dealt with in the next few years.

There are other very important issues to be addressed at the summit. I addressed some of them during Taoiseach’s Questions. We will not have time next week to deal with them but I hope we will have time during the next sitting week to deal with them properly.

The amount of time being allocated for these deliberations is far too short. Our spokesperson on Europe cannot contribute. That is not satisfactory. Others would also like to contribute. The time available to Deputies to contribute to key debates is unsatisfactory.

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