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

This is not the first time I have heard pessimism in this House on the negotiations, with suggestions that this is going nowhere and that we are going to have a hard border. We have a cast-iron commitment from the British Government that there will be no border infrastructure of any kind and no checks or controls. What we do not have from the British is a plan to deliver on that. The EU has a plan to deliver on that through its backstop, but the British Government said that it could not accept that wording. That is fine. Tis is a negotiation so let us wait and see what the British are thinking and hear their wording proposals. We have said that we will consider any new ideas as long as they deliver the outcome to which the British Government has committed.

A distinction must be made between what has been committed to in terms of outcome and the process that can achieve that outcome. That is what the Taoiseach meant when he said that we have a cast-iron guarantee that there will be no Border on the island of Ireland and I support him in that because we do have such a guarantee. We have a commitment in writing from the British Government to the EU and its institutions. We also have a commitment to President Tusk as recently as March that the commitment, in terms of the backstop, will be in the withdrawal treaty. Michel Barnier said again yesterday in front of all of the EU foreign Ministers that there will be no withdrawal treaty if there is not a legally operable wording on the Irish backstop. That is the position and we want to see that approach taking shape by the end of June. It does not need to be perfect or concluded at the end of June but we certainly need to see it taking shape so that we can have this finalised by October.

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