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

Every Cabinet meeting now dedicates time to Brexit and EU affairs. The infrastructure subcommittee met last week, for example. The way preparation is done is that memos are prepared in the normal way, advisers meet at an advisory meeting and senior officials meet at the senior officials group, SOG, to prepare it. There is a senior officials group dealing specifically with Brexit but when the matters come to politicians they are dealt with by the whole of Cabinet, pretty much every week at this stage. The Minister of State, Deputy McEntee attends on occasion when relevant. For example, there were two memos today at Cabinet on Brexit alone. One was dealing with tax, getting into more detail on the legislative provisions on tax that will have to be in the Brexit omnibus Bill. They particularly relate to corporation tax and VAT and how we can maintain the existing arrangements for a period in the event of a no-deal Brexit, until that gets clarified. There was some time spent on that. A little bit more time was spent today on the transport memo on Brexit, which related to the ports and airports, confirming that we will not need planning permission to make any of the necessary changes at Dublin Airport. It is already covered under exempted development. When it comes to Dublin Port and Rosslare, where we now control the land we need at those two ports, there are different scenarios for no-deal and in the event of a deal. In a no-deal scenario we will be able to use emergency legislation and emergency powers that the Minister for Finance has to direct the OPW to carry out certain works. That will be in the form of parking spaces for trucks and temporary buildings and portakabins to house officials. That will be the no-deal scenario. Obviously if we have a deal, we will have more time to put in place more permanent structures. That memo obviously was prepared in the normal way, seen by officials, put up on eCabinet and discussed by advisers. It is the same process we would use for a Cabinet subcommittee except there are 20 in the room rather than 50 or 60.

Tomorrow I will visit Brussels and we will meet with President Juncker, President Tusk, Mr. Michel Barnier, Mr. Guy Verhofstadt, MEP, and Commissioner Hogan to discuss the ongoing impasse in respect of Brexit and also to have an opportunity to discuss no-deal planning. People will be aware that there is a Commission delegation in Dublin at the moment discussing no-deal planning. They are going to every country. We are the ninth country they have been to so far. That is their main reason for being here. On Friday, I will travel to Northern Ireland where I will meet with the political parties there. When we travel to Northern Ireland, we should always listen to all of the parties and not just to any one party. Certainly I will be listening to the major parties and to the smaller ones if time allows as well. I also plan to speak to business and civil society in respect of Brexit. However, I will not be carrying out any negotiations with any political parties in Northern Ireland because, as Deputy McDonald rightly points out, the negotiations are between the EU and the UK. While we can certainly have discussions with the UK and with political parties or individual politicians, the negotiations can only happen with the EU and Ireland on one side of the table and the UK on the other. We are in a much stronger position in that regard and will not be departing from it. It is not just our strategy; it is also in the EU negotiating guidelines.

In respect of the various proposals that Deputy Howlin mentions, there are myriad proposals at this stage emanating from the House of Commons and it is hard to keep track of them all. There are no clear proposals yet from the UK Government other than a certain level of revisiting things that have already been rejected by the European Union. Specifically, Deputy Howlin asked about extending Article 50. Obviously, for Article 50 to be extended, the United Kingdom would have to request that, which it has not yet done. The Prime Minister has indicated that she does not intend to do so but, as we have said on a number of occasions now, if Article 50 were extended it would have to be extended for a particular purpose and that purpose would need to be agreed. We should never forget that the threat of no deal on 29 March is not a threat that Ireland or the European Union is making. The deadline of 29 March was set by Britain in Britain and it is open to them at any time to take away that no-deal possibility either by revoking Article 50 or by seeking an extension to Article 50, either of which they can do.

On affordable housing, Deputy English informs me that local authorities have already submitted seven or eight schemes for the construction of affordable housing. Councils can now proceed with those schemes so houses are built and ready so that people can purchase them under the new scheme. Cost rental is under way in Emmet Road. That is the pilot project, as it were, for cost rental in Dublin city. There is another project as well, I cannot remember exactly where, I think it is south Dublin somewhere in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. The scheme is going to be one of shared equity similar to what was there before. It will be published in a few weeks' time but there is already wide-scale awareness of how it will work. It will work on a shared equity basis with the council retaining equity in the home which people can then redeem at a later point. The affordable homes obviously have to be built before they can be purchased and there is no delay in allowing local authorities to proceed to build those houses.

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