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

The phone call with Chancellor Merkel was very much an opportunity to talk through what might happen in various scenarios and try to work out what might happen next and what we could do in various scenarios. It was a very good and useful conversation in that sense, and one we have had more than once and no doubt will have again. We did not have any detailed discussion on extending Article 50 but we are all aware it is an option. Ultimately, that request would have to come from the United Kingdom. I have no doubt any request from it would be considered. In terms of conversations about Brexit, one thing I can say about Germany and German politicians is they understand borders, hard borders and partitions in a way that perhaps very few other people in the European Union do. They understand what an enormous challenge and threat Brexit is to Ireland and to all that has been achieved in the past 20 years.

I have always said, and I have been saying it for months if not years, that we cannot avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland simply through words, promises and good intentions. It requires a legally operable and binding agreement that aligns customs rules and market regulations. This is what the backstop is. It is exactly that. It is an alignment of customs rules and Single Market regulations so there does not have to be a border with physical infrastructure or associated checks or controls. Despite what others may say, no other proposal on the table at the moment does this, not one. The best that people who are opposed to the backstop and who, at the same time, state they do not want a hard border on the island of Ireland can come up with is a promise it will never happen or a promise they will sort it out over the next two years. This is not acceptable. The Irish Government and anyone in the House cannot accept this. The backstop is a legally operable mechanism to avoid a hard border by aligning customs and regulations and nothing else is being proposed by anyone else that does this, other than a promise to come up with something in a year or two or three. This is not something the Government can accept. This is why we have to hold so firmly to our position on the backstop.

In terms of what would happen in a no-deal scenario, it is always a difficult thing to speculate about. If, in a few weeks, we end up in a scenario where the UK leaves the EU without a deal we will have a real dilemma because Ireland is part of the European Union and we will have obligations to protect the Single Market, the United Kingdom will have joined the World Trade Organization and will have obligations to implement WTO rules, and the UK and Ireland will have an obligation to honour the Good Friday Agreement, protect the peace process and honour our commitment to the people of Ireland and Northern Ireland that there will not be a hard border. What would we have to do in that scenario? We would have to negotiate an agreement on customs and regulations that would mean full alignment so there would be no hard border. We already have that agreement and that is the backstop. Nobody who is opposed to the backstop can credibly state he or she is also against a hard border unless he or she can come up with something else that aligns customs and regulations and allows a border to be avoided. Nobody else has done that yet. There is a reason it took a year and a half to two years to negotiate the backstop. It is because it was difficult to do. We have done it and we cannot give it up in return for a promise that it will be all right on the night or a commitment just to sort it out over the coming two years. It took us 18 months to sort it out. We have a proposal that works and we have to stand by it.

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