Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The attack on the two Russians in the UK took place two days before the Taoiseach's meeting with President Tusk and was the subject of widespread comment in national and international media, in particular UK media. Did the Taoiseach discuss with President Tusk the implications of that attack? Was there any suggestion at that stage of a move to a common European position on the attack in the context of the relationship with Britain pre and post Brexit? It would be interesting to know if there was a discussion in that respect at that stage.

As has been pointed out, we would have expected the Brexit backstop situation to have been dealt with as required in the next couple of months. Instead, it has been deferred to October. In the minds of most people, that constitutes a significant potential weakening of the Irish position. Did the Taoiseach get any guarantees from President Tusk in relation to what the backstop will actually involve? We now have widespread declamations from people like Minister David Davis that there will be fantastic technical innovations which will allow us to have a technological border not located anywhere other than in the cloud while having a whole range of provisions he will list. I do not know if the Taoiseach heard commentary at the weekend from agricultural interests and business interests on the Border to the effect that this will not work for them even if they get preferred-trader status.

See this speech in context