Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I understood the Taoiseach to say Cabinet committee C on the European Union has not met since June. Cabinet subcommittees have a purpose. The Taoiseach indicated to us before that he is not too fond of them. They allow very senior civil servants to brief in detail on the detail of papers and, for example, to set out how they imagine the backstop would work in detail and what considerations and planning are required and who they have talked with. That kind of information is not normally at a full Cabinet meeting nor are people other than members of the Cabinet, the secretary to the Government and the Attorney General normally present. Is the Taoiseach saying he is bringing some of these people, who have an enormous skillset, from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and his own Department in to brief the Cabinet or is it the Taoiseach who is doing all the briefing? I am not surprised that the Minister, Deputy Ross, was very surprised because clearly, as the leader of the minor party in the Government, he would need to be kept very well briefed and possibly have access to something like a Cabinet subcommittee to be aware that there were or were not going to be issues and how they were likely to pan out at the Border. I have not heard that Cabinet meetings have gone on extraordinarily long. If the Taoiseach is having Cabinet subcommittee meetings at Cabinet meetings, we should be reading that the Taoiseach is coming out grey and exhausted ten hours later because he is piling them on. We deserve to know a little bit more about how the members of the Cabinet are briefed and about the subcommittee and the minor party because it is a very big issue for Ireland. We want the people who are representing us to do so to the best of their ability. Has the Taoiseach spoken with any of the leaders in the European Union, the President of the Commission or the President of the Council since the votes last night? When does he anticipate he will go on a tour of Europe to meet the leaders to discuss the situation? What he is indicating to us now is, if I understand it correctly, there will be no change and that he is not anticipating meeting anyone from Northern Ireland such as the DUP and those on the leave side. Is Theresa May planning to come to Dublin? The Taoiseach said he spoke to her yesterday and will speak to her again today. Will he tell us something about that?

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