Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last week's summit was a long one, but it did not mark any major move forward on the most important issues facing the European Union.  For Ireland, it marked a moment when a deadline which had repeatedly been identified by the Government passed without progress and any explanation of what would come next. While the final communiqué addresses a wide range of issues, there were two issues that were urgent, one of which caused negotiations to continue long into the night, while the other was passed over, with no discussion and no attempt to provide clarity. Unfortunately, it was the issue of Brexit that received almost no attention. As migration was the issue that dominated most of the time and attention at the summit, I will deal with it first.

There is no question that the scale and pace of migration across the Mediterranean in 2015 and 2016 put incredible pressures on many countries. The most dramatic and difficult element of the migration was the entirely man-made humanitarian crisis in Syria. A civil war started by an increasingly repressive regime against its own people was escalated dramatically because of the decision of Russia to intervene, support the regime and target attacks against regions held by moderate forces, rather than those held by ISIS. It is a pity that many, although not all, voices in this House and elsewhere in Europe that are raised loudly in other circumstances had so little to say about the conflict when this extreme escalation was mounted. If ever there was a reasonable definition of refugee, it was people fleeing that conflict. The statement of the German Chancellor, Dr. Merkel, "We will cope", was an exceptionally brave one as it led to her country welcoming hundreds of thousands of refugees. It was, unfortunately, a gesture of human decency which placed her under enormous political pressure, domestically and now throughout Europe.

The enormous pressures exerted at the height of the migration crisis have been over for some time and many places along the Mediterranean which were nearly overwhelmed are now coping well, yet in spite of this, some politicians in some countries have decided to escalate the issue dramatically. The Prime Minister of Hungary has used it as part of repeated xenophobic and deeply sinister campaigns, including the introduction of laws to close down and intimidate non-governmental organisations.  It is shameful that the Taoiseach and Fine Gael remain silent on this issue and are more interested in solidarity within the EPP than with terrorised refugees. The Prime Minister of Austria has decided to make migration the number one issue for the Council in the next six months and announced that there will be a special summit in September to deal solely with migration. He announced the holding of the summer in a joint press release with his deputy who is the leader of a party that is so far to the right that many members spent their youth promoting a revision of Nazi-era history. It appears that the Taoiseach did not have time to oppose this hijacking of the European Union's agenda by the far right, but he did have time to take a selfie with Mr. Kurz. Obviously, the behaviour of the new Italian Government is deliberately controversial and inflammatory. The issue for Ireland and every other country is that we have to stop this attempt to exploit what is, undoubtedly, a serious issue as an excuse to undermine the humanitarian values which underpin the European Union.

Fianna Fáil supports the offer that Ireland participate in relocating refugees from countries which are carrying an undue burden.  In that respect, we acknowledge the particularly constructive approach the governments of Spain and Greece took last week to promote an agreement.

In contrast we strongly oppose the enforcement only approach advocated by some governments.  The only reasonable long-term solution is to make a major and sustained commitment to the development and reconstruction of the countries in north Africa and the Middle East which so many of these people are fleeing from.

In contrast to the deep and impassioned debate on migration, there was no debate on Brexit even though June was supposed to be a critical deadline. During last week’s Dáil statements on this issue, every Opposition party, with the exception of Deputy McDonald's, who told us we were being too tough on the Taoiseach, called for an explanation from the Taoiseach about why he and the Tánaiste had threatened so much if there was no progress by June and why they had simply gone silent when the deadline passed. No explanation was offered. I would remind the Taoiseach that both he and the Tánaiste said as early as 12 December last year that any attempted backsliding by the British would necessitate a suspension of the negotiations.  They have been backsliding since then and nothing has happened. In what is, sadly, an increasingly dominant approach to Brexit at a political level in Government, nobody in this House has received any explanation publicly or privately as to why June was no longer a decisive date. More seriously, we have received no information about what, if anything, the Government intends to do to try and change the current failing dynamic in the talks, insofar as they relate to Ireland.

It is clear to everyone that the shambles in the Tory party has prevented the British Government from outlining what exactly it wants the final relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union to be. This is a shambles which has been nearly 40 years in the making and has its foundation in three generations of politicians who scapegoated Europe for everything and angrily demanded a return to a long disappeared imperial grandeur. We do not need the Taoiseach to wag his finger at the failures of the British but we need him to outline what exactly he is seeking as a final status for economic relations on this island and what he intends to do to achieve it.

There are times when the Taoiseach sounds more like a commentator on events rather than someone who is proposing solutions, and after the deadline for progress by June has passed and Ireland is now caught up in the final stages of the withdrawal negotiations, there is no sense of what his new strategy is. It appears that he kept a straight face last Friday when he solemnly announced to journalists that it was unrealistic for the backstop to apply to the whole of the United Kingdom. What he failed to mention was that he himself was the first person to propose applying the backstop to the whole of the United Kingdom.  On 8 December, at the start of a round of overspinning the draft political agreement, the Taoiseach stated: “So there is a backstop arrangement in which Northern Ireland and perhaps all of the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with rules of the Internal Market and Customs Union”. In the same speech the Taoiseach also stated that the backstop would bring no new barriers between Britain and Northern Ireland, an assurance which showed that he accepted the position of London about an east-west border.

London’s incompetence and indecision is creating a dangerous vacuum at the heart of these negotiations and we need to remember that we are directly threatened by this vacuum. It remains our position that there is no credible way of having a soft border and protecting the pillars of the peace settlement without a form of special economic status for Northern Ireland.  More importantly, there is no way of addressing the economic problems of Northern Ireland and the Border region without a form of special economic status which provides access to both the European Union and the United Kingdom.

It is as yet unexplained why our Government has decided not to make any proposals for a permanent arrangement for Northern Ireland.  At very best the backstop is simply that, a temporary arrangement which awaits agreement on a permanent arrangement, and given that there has been zero progress in turning the December backstop into an agreed legal text, the lack of any proposals for the permanent arrangement carries with it serious risks. The most important of these risks is that we will be faced with a decision in October or November of accepting an arrangement more directly linked to the yet to be negotiated final status or vetoing any withdrawal treaty, something which seems fanciful given the last six months and the cost of the hard Brexit which would follow such a veto.

What we need is for the Government to be more open about its clearly changing strategy.  We need to know what is going to change to move away from an obviously dangerous strategy of hoping that London will either get its act together or reverse its referendum decision. Contacts with our European Union partners are always welcome, but given the scale of the dysfunction in relationships between the Taoiseach and the Prime Minister and the fact that the Irish dimension of the negotiations have only three important elements, namely, London, Brussels and Dublin, why is a tour of other capitals the major initiative planned for the next month? In March we were told by the Government that it had put down a marker and that substantial progress was needed by June.  The summit’s conclusions state in stark language that there has been no substantial progress. It is long past time for the Taoiseach to put aside the spin and talk candidly about why he has now ruled out his preferred outcome and what he intends doing in the next four months to change the dynamic of these critical, yet floundering negotiations.

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