Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The news yesterday that the Taoiseach was prepared to allow the negotiations on the backstop arrangement to be subsumed into the wider Brexit negotiations is troubling. Last December, he told us that the backstop was a cast-iron guarantee. He told us that in the event of no deal there would be no hard border. He told us it was a sure thing, but the details were never worked out because, as we know, the British Government dithered and dithered. I am sure the Taoiseach will agree that the Government in Britain is in disarray following the resignation this morning of a senior Minister on foot of the outworkings of the Brexit negotiations there.

Does the Taoiseach believe that the backstop arrangement was not part of the overall negotiations, that it was a separate legal agreement? The Government told us it would be separate from the overall arrangements. Does he still believe that we need certainty regarding the backstop arrangement, that that certainty must come at the European Council meeting in June and that, without it, progress will not have been made?

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