Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We very much share the anguish that everyone feels in response to hearing the tragic stories this morning of women who feel that the State has left them down.

I want to raise a wider threat to the State and to all our people in respect of what is happening in the Brexit negotiations. The meeting in Dundalk with Michel Barnier and the interested stakeholders was very useful. It presented a very stark picture of where we are in the withdrawal negotiations, where 75% of the text of a putative withdrawal treaty has been agreed but two critical areas remain. One is the Irish issue, which in a sense is a metaphor for the wider issues about the nature of the customs arrangement that will take place between the UK and the rest of the European Union, although Ireland's concerns are very specific. The second, if we can overcome that, is the issue of governance which would effectively be the agreement of the UK Government to accept the European Court of Justice, ECJ, as the arbiter for that initial agreement and any future negotiations. The scale of the challenge in getting those two was remarkable, and then there is the transition arrangement after that where we would have to have 700 deals for a whole range of different sectors and where the EU has to have unanimity. The EU has all the negotiating power because it is staying the same and is not changing how the Union works, whereas in effect the UK must give in every area.

From what happened in London subsequent to our meeting in Dundalk last week, it seems clear that the UK Government seems completely incapable of addressing that challenge. The Tory party is split like a log divided in two by an axe. There seems no way by which the two parts of that party will come together. As there is an opposition there that is not putting forward an alternative, it is hard to see how agreement might come from the UK Parliament.

There seems an increasingly high risk that there will be a UK crash-out of the EU, where there will be no draft treaty withdrawal agreement. Yesterday, the Taoiseach said that he has not spoken to the British Prime Minister in six weeks. However, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, has met and spoken to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond. Is the Minister starting to work with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on plans for such an eventuality and how we can avoid the absolute economic carnage that would take place in the event of a crash-out Brexit without any withdrawal or trade deal, where presumably we would revert to World Trade Organization, WTO, rules and where there would be incredible economic dislocation?

We have had a good process with the Tánaiste, Deputy Coveney, on the talks. However, we have not looked at the "emergency, brace yourself, we are about to crash" scenario. It is time that we did that. It is time that the Government and all the parties sat down about this, perhaps in private as some of these matters are difficult to discuss publicly. The responsible thing to do for Irish society, North and South and our relationship with the UK, would be for us to start thinking about what we would do in that scenario because to me, that scenario seems like the most likely. If there is any reason that the Minister can question my logic, I would be glad to hear it. I also would be interested to hear what the Minister and the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, are working on in this incredibly threatening and complex process.

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