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

Again, it is difficult to deal with 16 questions as they embrace both Northern Ireland and European matters. It might have been more useful to keep them separate.

We will have statements on Northern Ireland tomorrow, which is a week later than when the British House of Commons heard from the British Government about the political crisis in Northern Ireland. This is the best forum for getting details on the matters. It is a pity that the Taoiseach will not be in a position to address the House on this as his predecessors regularly addressed the House concerning talks in the North at critical junctures over the past 30 years.

Everybody understands we have reached a very serious moment and some of the statements over the past week about the continuing commitment to the Good Friday Agreement are welcome, but they bring us in no way closer to an agreement or way forward. As I will indicate at greater length tomorrow, direct rule would be a clear breach of the international agreement that we negotiated and which has been the bedrock of a process that has delivered major progress for this island. The critical question is what can be done to break this logjam. If we reflect on the matters involved, they come nowhere near the seriousness of issues that have been overcome in the past but there is a growing sense of a deeper crisis. The draft agreement leaked to the media appears both reasonable and welcome.

Does the Taoiseach agree the time has come to change the dynamic that has so conspicuously failed in the past seven years to deliver functioning government in Northern Ireland? Is it not time to return to a model of talks used for every substantive breakthrough in the process? All-party talks with the active participation of the Governments are surely now the only serious option available. Instead of allowing further entrenchment of views, why is that not being pushed now? The negotiations currently exclude many people. Over 40% of the electorate has been excluded so far from the talks in the North, with all the other parties not being a participant. There has been a lack of urgency in that regard and I ask that both Governments engage with all parties in this regard.

I tabled a question on the transition matter. My sense is there is a process of kicking the can down the road. We saw phase 1 before Christmas and I would like to think phase 2 might bring about a transition agreement before we get an overall trade agreement, which could be down the road again. The British Labour Party's decision to move closer to a customs union is to be particularly welcomed. Along the lines of a point I have made for quite some time, there is a need for both the Government and Oireachtas to engage very proactively with Westminster and the British Government with a view to applying pressure with respect to advising to stay in the customs union and the Single Market.

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