David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The vast majority of people outside the House who are nationalist in the North want all the parties to be constructive and they understand the motivations that lie behind the attacks which come from Teachta Martin. They are not about making sure we deal with the real complexities and challenges that present in the North. It is all to do with what he sees as the electoral challenge from Sinn Féin in the South and that is deeply disappointing. He has been, without a shadow of a doubt, the most cynical and divisive leader of Fianna Fáil in the history of his party when it comes the North. This is something he should really reflect on. It is deeply disappointing to nationalists in the North.

The biggest issue facing the North, as the Tánaiste knows, is Brexit. Of course we need to get the institutions up and running again. We had a draft outline agreement with the DUP and it walked away from it. We want the institutions to be up and running but they have to be on the basis of equality. We cannot cherry pick equality. We know what needs to be done to get the institutions up and running. Brexit is the big fundamental challenge. Last week we had three big events. We had a significant speech and contribution from the leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, in which he moved his party's position to a more sensible and practical one on wanting a customs union between Britain and the European Union. This is something the vast majority of people in the House would want to see. It is in the best interests of the people in Britain and in the best interests of the island of Ireland. We then had the legal text that gives effect to the backstop agreement and the joint report agreed a number of months ago between the British Government and the European Union. That speech was rejected out of hand by Downing Street and Theresa May. She said no British Prime Minister could countenance what was proposed in the legal text, except she had done so only a couple of months earlier. We then had the speech from Theresa May on Friday, which again rejected what was said by the European Union. She reiterated her view that the North would come out of the customs union and the Single Market, as would Britain, and that we can in the same way and at the same time avoid a hardening of the Border and protect the Good Friday Agreement.

We had a very lengthy discussion today at the stakeholder forum, which the Tánaiste chairs and at which I was present. What we are all trying to do is decipher what is spin, what are the obvious utterances coming from the British Prime Minister which are simply to appease the hard Brexiteers in the Tory Party and the DUP, and what is the actual position of the British Government. I have long said, and I have said it to the Tánaiste several times and I have said it in the House, that what we need to do in this State and what we need to do across the island is, in the first instance, to protect the interests of the people of Ireland but also to find common cause with people in Britain who want to protect the Good Friday Agreement and want to avoid a hardening of the Border. We will do this, in my view, by working with those in the Tory Party and the British Labour Party who want a form of customs union between Britain and the European Union and, in fact, want Britain to stay in the customs union. This is the best outcome. The Government stated the backstop arrangement was bullet-proof and copperfastened and would be absolutely the bare minimum we would get.

How is that the case when Prime Minister Theresa May said categorically on Friday that there can be no border in the Irish Sea, while at the same time saying that there will not be full alignment in regulations and standards between Britain and the European Union? In that scenario, how will the backstop agreement be implemented? When the European Union put the backstop agreement into a legal formula, it was rejected out of hand by the British Government. Where, then, is the bulletproof backstop arrangement which we were promised and which the Taoiseach told us was in the bag, a claim reiterated by the Tánaiste on several occasions? That is not a criticism of the Irish Government or the Tánaiste, by the way. It is a criticism of the British Government's lack of ability to bring forward practical and tangible solutions that will deal with the issues facing Ireland, and the afterthought that the British Government and the hard Brexiteers have given to the impact on Ireland.

We sincerely wish the Tánaiste, the Irish Government and the European Union well in their negotiations with the British Government. However, the frustration felt by people in the North with the attitude of the British Government is very real. It is Groundhog Day; we seem to go back to the same space every time. It gives us the high-level principles and say that it wants to protect the Good Friday Agreement and avoid the hardening of the Border, but does not give us any practical solutions as to how it is going to bring it about. That is deeply frustrating.

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