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

I am satisfied it does. The draft withdrawal agreement will be published in Brussels tomorrow at 12 noon. Obviously, I am not at liberty to give detail of it here today, but it will be available for people to see at 12 noon tomorrow. The Tánaiste met with Mr. Michel Barnier yesterday to indicate our satisfaction with the text and I spoke by telephone to the Prime Minister, Mrs. May, last night.

The Deputy is aware of the background to all of this. The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Almost immediately afterwards we sought an assurance from the United Kingdom that there would be no hard border and that everything possible would be done to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. We got that verbal assurance last year. We then sought to have that written down in black and white and made into a political agreement. We got that political agreement last December. Since then we have sought to turn the black and white text of the political agreement and commitment into a legal text which forms a protocol to the withdrawal agreement. The Deputy will see that legal text tomorrow.

I am satisfied that it sets down in law how we can avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. As I said last December, there are three options for how to do that. The first is in the context of a new close relationship between the UK and the EU. That is our absolute preference. We do not want a border between the North and the South any more than we want a border in the Irish Sea between east and west. The second option, or option B, is the British bespoke solutions which they have yet to outline, but we look forward to seeing them when they have completed them. The third option, option C, is the fall-back option, or last resort as the Prime Minister, Mrs. May, prefers to describe it. That is outlined in legal form in the withdrawal agreement being published tomorrow in Brussels. However, that withdrawal agreement is a draft text and we cannot automatically assume it will be acceptable to the United Kingdom or to all the parties in Northern Ireland. We could have an interesting few weeks ahead of us, as was the case last December. It will have to become a legal text by October this year.

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