Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, I welcome the progress made on the draft protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland during the most recent round of negotiations, which concluded on 19 March. This is recorded in an annotated, colour-coded version of the draft withdrawal agreement published by the Commission task force on 19 March, which reflects agreement on some articles of the draft text, including "Common Travel Area" and "Other areas of North-South cooperation".

During the negotiations, the UK accepted that a legally operative version of the backstop for the Border will be included in the withdrawal agreement, that this must be in line with paragraph 49 of the joint progress report agreed last December and that all the issues identified in the draft protocol reflect those that must be addressed. These were important steps forward, which I do not believe everybody has recognised.

The European Council, in agreeing additional negotiating guidelines on 23 March, stressed that work remains to be done in order to achieve overall agreement on the draft withdrawal agreement, especially with regard to the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland. It reiterated that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. To this end, an intensive schedule of negotiations has been agreed between the EU and the UK, with a view to continuing efforts to narrow the remaining gaps on the draft protocol and its annexes. The first round took place earlier this week and more will be held over the coming weeks. Irish officials will be involved in some of these meetings where the task force believes this would be helpful and we will remain in close contact with the task force throughout.

These negotiations include discussions on Article 4 of the draft protocol, which addresses the free movement of goods between Northern Ireland and the EU. The overall aim is to maintain full alignment with those rules of the Single Market and customs union that are necessary to protect North-South co-operation and the all-island economy, as well as to avoid a hard border. It is necessary, therefore, to have comprehensive and accurate lists of all relevant rules, which will be set out in a number of annexes to the protocol. While the Commission, in conjunction with Government Departments, has already done a great deal of work on this, it will be in the course of the EU-UK negotiations that the content of the annexes will be finalised.

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