Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

One of the critical judgments to be made of the Taoiseach's Government is on how badly Ireland will be impacted by Brexit. It is clear that Brexit risks doing incalculable damage to our country. Everybody in this House knows it. We have discussed it in and out. Tens of thousands of jobs are at risk, as is social cohesion on both sides of the Border. For those of us who have had the opportunity to talk to both sides of the community in Northern Ireland in recent days, it is clear that they feel unrepresented and vulnerable in this entire process. Events are moving quickly. The EU is preparing a new position paper on the Irish Border question. We are told it will be a compromise on the initial paper, but which of our interests are being compromised? The backstop on the Border is now presented as the largest barrier to the UK's exit deal. Before the summer I asked the Taoiseach to resolve Ireland's Brexit concerns at the special September EU summit being hosted this week by the Austrian Chancellor. I understand that the backstop is on the agenda for the so-called working lunch of the EU 27. The backstop, however, does not represent the sum of all of Ireland's interests. The whole point of seeking a separate Ireland protocol in advance was to shield our wider interests, such as east-west trade, from the kind of brinkmanship and 11th hour negotiations we now see occurring. Regardless of the result of the EU-UK negotiations, including the potential for no deal, we need to resolve Ireland's interests before the pressure comes upon us to compromise further, which could now happen at a special meeting of EU Heads of Government as late as November next.

We need to secure a legally binding agreement on the common travel area. We need to ensure that what we enjoy now will continue to exist and will not be weakened or diluted over time. We are told by all sides that there is a political will to maintain the common travel area, but the Taoiseach knows that only exists by way of a so-called gentleman's agreement. The political environment created by a hard, messy Brexit would provide little guarantee that Irish passport holders could still work and reside in the UK, use the NHS and avail of all the other benefits they now enjoy. Brexit could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Irish people living in the UK. We need the EU to open up the space for a bilateral British-Irish agreement on this issue, the common travel area, which is in our interests.

This is the only concern which is historically ours and the UK's alone. It does not impinge on the wider EU. Will the Government seek the consent of our EU partners for such an agreement to be negotiated as a matter of urgency? Has the Taoiseach given consideration to setting out our understanding of the full implications of common travel area in draft legislation here?

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