Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Talks on restoring the Northern Ireland Executive broke down last autumn and have recently resumed. We wish them well. It is my understanding that when the talks ended last October, the parties were close to an agreement and the DUP and Sinn Féin in particular had moved their negotiating positions substantially. There have been calls from the leader of the SDLP for the details of the reported compromise to be put into the public domain and for all the surrounding papers to be made available for public purview so that we can know how close the two parties were to a deal. Will the Irish Government publish the papers and call on the other main actors to do this so that the Irish people, North and South, can see how close a deal was at that time?

During the Taoiseach's discussions with Prime Minister May, did he refer to the polarisation that would ensue from another round of elections or direct rule and what was her specific response?

A point was made about the Brexit talks. The irreconcilable position that was agreed last year, which we welcomed, was almost like what used to happen in the North, in that we would have constructive and deliberate ambiguity so that people could work out the detail subsequently. The problem is that all the utterances since then - I have listened to Mr. David Davis, Mr. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ms Theresa Villiers - have made it crystal clear from a British Tory perspective that Northern Ireland will remain in the UK customs union and the UK as a whole, including Northern Ireland, will not be a part of any European customs union. How are we to break that deadlock? Are we just to pretend that it is a reconcilable position until it actually becomes manifest when the endgame is reached and the UK leaves the EU in March of next year?

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