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

I do not remember the exact date of my last contact with Theresa May but it was by telephone about ten days ago. I think it was the day I was in Munich or the day after that when I was in Paris. We had pencilled in a call for the week gone by but given all the events in Westminster that did not happen. I do not anticipate I will speak to her today. The motion of no confidence is happening and I understand there may even be a series of rolling motions of no confidence. This, I understand, is the idea of the Leader of the Labour Party in the UK, to put down several motions of no confidence but I am sure we will speak soon and we may have the opportunity to meet in Davos next week if she is able to make it. I appreciate things are very fluid in Westminster at the moment. There is ongoing contact between our Sherpas and our chiefs of staff.

We have not had a detailed discussion on Article 50. In at least one meeting or telephone call I raised the prospect of Article 50 being extended, saying that was an option, which is just a statement of fact, but it was not something that she really wanted to pursue at that point. It was our shared objective to focus on securing the ratification of the withdrawal agreement.

Deputy McDonald asked many hypothetical questions. I do not have a problem with that. Asking hypothetical questions is reasonable but it is not always possible to give answers to hypothetical questions without guessing and I have found that guessing and speculating out loud is not a good idea when it comes to Brexit. There is one hypothetical question I might ask Deputy McDonald to consider: I know it is the Sinn Féin policy that if there is a hard Brexit, no deal, the only way to avoid a border between Northern Ireland and Ireland is to have a border poll and bring about territorial unity. The question arises that if that border poll were defeated would Sinn Féin then seek that Ireland leave the European Union and align itself with the UK in terms of customs and the Single Market. These things have to be thought through because that is certainly something I would never support. We will stay at the heart of the European Union. I wonder if Sinn Féin might go back to being Eurosceptic in that situation. I would be interested to know how the Deputy would propose to avoid a hard border after the border poll was defeated.

I read the transcript of what the Tánaiste said yesterday. My reading of it is that he was specifically referring to checks on goods travelling between Britain and Ireland and we all know that those checks will occur at ports and airports. That is the most sensible thing to do.

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