Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate Deputy Martin did not say that but that is how some people could interpret one of the motions passed yesterday. When it comes to legal advice from the Attorney General, it is my strong view that legal advice should be privileged. It is the case with the legal advice provided to many people that it should be privileged to those who receive it.

Deputy Haughey also asked about the legal advice of the UK Attorney General. I am not in a position to comment on it because I have been here for two hours and the advice was only published in the past two hours. I hope to get a chance to read it tonight sometime. In any event, I doubt it will be fundamentally different from what the UK Attorney General outlined in the House of Commons the other day. We did something similar with the eighth amendment. We are willing to produce summaries of the Attorney General's legal advice. That is what the UK Attorney General did and the summary came across as sound to me. It will be interesting to see if there is any significant or meaningful difference between what he released and what comes out today. We will see that when we see it.

Deputy Haughey also asked if we are actively preparing for the future relationship talks. The answer is "Yes". In fact, we used the opportunity of the summit in Brussels to undertake a round of the 27 Prime Ministers and Presidents to express our priorities, particular interests and concerns for the future relationship. As Deputies can imagine, these are all the ideas we would expect. People want there to be free and frictionless trade with the UK in the future relationship, but people also want to ensure that is linked to a level playing field on environmental standards, labour rights, workers’ rights and so on. There is particular concern around fisheries. Many coastal states, including Ireland, are concerned about the impact on our fisheries industry. As someone who hails from a seafaring background and family, I know Deputy Haughey will have a particular interest in that too.

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