Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government has said consistently that we will not accept a hard border between the two jurisdictions on this island. The EU and UK both accept that avoiding a hard border is essential. I also know that is the position of the great majority of Members in this House.

Throughout the negotiations, it has been a priority to protect the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts and to ensure that there will be no hard border on the island of Ireland under any circumstances. Only the withdrawal agreement, with its backstop provisions, provides the essential legal guarantee that we looked for. However, if the withdrawal agreement does not enter into force, Ireland will have legal responsibilities, and an economic interest, in terms of ensuring the protection of the Single Market and customs union. The UK will have its own responsibilities, including with regard to the WTO.

As co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement, Ireland and the UK have solemn and binding obligations to ensure peace and stability in Northern Ireland. As such, if the UK leaves without an agreement in place and the European Union and Ireland are on one side and the UK is on the other, we will all have to work intensively together to ensure that we deliver on our shared goal of avoiding the return of a hard border. We are absolutely committed to doing that, even in those difficult circumstances.

The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, is also fully committed to this objective and he provided further reassurances on this in a telephone call to the Taoiseach on 24 January. This position is fully shared by the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, and our fellow EU 27 member states. As the Commission spokesperson stated on 23 January:

The EU is determined to do all it can, deal or no deal, to avoid the need for a border and to protect peace in Northern Ireland. The EU is fully behind Ireland and has expressed, on numerous occasions, full solidarity with Ireland. That has not changed.

We have a way of doing this; it is called "the backstop". It was designed around British red lines and with Britain. It was not an offer given to Britain. The debates we hear often in Britain now seem to suggest the UK had nothing to do with this and that it was somehow offered to it. This was a solution Britain bought into, through its Government, and endorsed.

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