Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

When we had statements in the House last November, I asked the Tánaiste for his assessment of the likelihood of a no-deal Brexit and the contingency plans that were being put in place in the event of that happening. Six months have passed and it has to be said that we have no further clarity on what the UK will propose as its alternative solution to the so called backstop agreement from December. It is now almost two years since the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU. There is still no clarity at this stage on the status of the Border. That is quite frankly, farcical. I do not blame the Tánaiste for this situation. It seems, however, that the entire process is being held at the mercy of infighting between the deluded and the disillusioned in the Conservative Party.

I note that the Taoiseach and the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, met Prime Minister May in Sofia last week and that the talks harkened to some new thinking on the part of the British Government regarding the customs arrangement for Northern Ireland.

4 o’clock

If this new thinking mirrors the reports that were highlighted in some quarters of the English press last week, we may be even less further on in negotiations than we realised previously. According to reports in The Telegraph last week, there is now a grudging acceptance within the hardline Brexit faction of the Conservative Party that the UK may need to remain in the customs union beyond 2020 but this is only to allow the technology that would allow for a barrier-free border to be refined, the so-called "max fac" approach. The other alternative apparently being considered is a customs partnership whereby the UK would act as the EU's tax collector. The fact that the UK cabinet is still even entertaining the idea that these solutions are workable should be ringing alarm bells for the Government and for Brussels. Both of these solutions have already been dismissed and the Government and the EU need to emphasise this point emphatically to London and that the December 2017 backstop agreement is the only game in town.

The three objectives set out by Prime Minister May are a clear example of the "having one's cake and eating it" attitude that has dominated the UK's approach to these negotiations from the outset. The objectives are: Britain should have its own trade policy with the rest of the world independent of the collective deals that other EU states enjoy; despite this Britain should have frictionless trade with the EU; and there are no borders between the UK and Ireland. These aims are not only incompatible with leaving the Single Market and customs union but they are also internally inconsistent. How can the UK hope to maintain frictionless trade within the EU with an open border with Ireland? How can the UK hope to retain this frictionless trade without paying into the EU budgets? Why would the UK believe that the EU should allow a former member unfettered access to the Internal Market while simultaneously negotiating preferential trade deals with non-member states?

The transition period is expected to end in December 2020. While, technically, it may be possible to extend this, why would the Irish Government agree to this if we are simply being strung along, as the Conservative Party would argue, over decisions we have already stated are unacceptable? A sense of unreality seems to permeate the UK's approach to these talks. I would strongly urge the Government to make it clear that the time for prevarication is over. We can no longer wait for a plan. I note that after the meeting in Bulgaria, the Taoiseach expected the UK would table a new customs proposal in two weeks. We can only hope we are not still discussing it in another six months but my fear is that we will be.

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