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

They have legislation but nothing like what we are proposing. None of them has the common travel area arrangements we are putting in place. The reason we did not sign confirmation of memorandums of understanding and common travel area arrangements in December was we did not want to be seen to be sorting out Irish citizens while we were still negotiating as a collective. The Deputy knows that. We have discussed it.

I appreciate the co-operation of all parties in the House on this issue. It is not party-political. It is not a Government versus Opposition arrangement in terms of some of the emergency stuff we may have to do together. There are clear reasons the earliest we could have published the detail of detailed legislation of the scale we are proposing is 22 February. Most people who have been following this understand that.

With regard to what the Taoiseach said in Davos, which is a fair question, if one listens to the interview, he was asked to describe what a hard border would look like and he described it. It essentially reminded people of what things were like more than two decades ago.

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