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

I thank all parties in the House for the support they have given the Government. Politics in Ireland is remarkably different from politics in the United Kingdom on the issue of Brexit. The work the Government has been doing on behalf of everybody here has, by and large, been supported very strongly by all parties even though we come from different places on so many different issues. That has been hugely helpful. I hope we can keep that intact over the summer months when Ireland needs to hold its nerve in the negotiations and keep the pressure on to ensure we protect Irish interests and the interests of Irish people on this island. I assure the Deputy that is what we will do. I spend the vast majority of my time thinking about and acting in the context of my responsibilities on Brexit. I spent over an hour and a half this week with Michel Barnier talking through the detail of how we can approach the summer with a view to getting the results we need. I will be in London next Wednesday meeting a series of British Ministers to talk through the concerns and frustrations we have. Later today, I will take a phone call from a senior British Government Minister in that regard. I assure the Deputy it is an absolute priority for the Government. We have been frustrated and disappointed that the British Government has not delivered on the commitments it made to Ireland and the EU in December and March and in Prime Minister May's speeches, primarily the Mansion House speech. Over the summer months, the challenge will be to intensify those efforts to find a way of putting in place a legal text that can be part of a withdrawal treaty that will deliver on the cast-iron political commitments that have been made in writing, not only to Ireland but also to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, and many others.

Most people understand why we have not made the kind of progress we would like to have made by now. We are listening to the ongoing political debate at Westminster. The British Government is essentially negotiating with itself. Until that process comes to a conclusion it is difficult to make significant progress on some of the key and difficult political issues in the discussions between the British negotiating team and the EU task force led by Michel Barnier. Our focus will remain on the negotiations and the technical detail that is required in terms of legal language to make sure that we will have a withdrawal agreement we can support. As Michel Barnier has been, let me be very clear: there will be no withdrawal treaty if there is no legally operable text on the so-called Irish backstop. It is a fundamental part of it. The commitments have been made by the British side as well as the EU side that it will be accommodated as part of that treaty. The treaty will not happen if that does not happen. The challenge for me and many others is to work with the British Government as much as we can to try to find a way to achieve that outcome and to show some imagination in terms of how we get there.

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