Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The most important issue facing this country in the event of a no-deal Brexit is the threat of a hard border. That is an issue that is not dealt with in this legislation and we still do not know from the Government what it will do in the event of a no-deal Brexit where pressure comes from either the UK or the European Union to impose a hard border. While other considerations that are looked at in this Bill such as health, education, insurance, tax, electricity, harbours legislation, share trading and the other issues which we can go through in a minute, are very important and need to be looked at and addressed and some of them have been, to my mind all of those issues are secondary to the threat of a hard border being imposed. If a hard border was re-erected between the North and South of this island, it would be a total disaster and it would drag us back to the very dark days of conflict and division. It is important to say that this threat is not one that should be uniquely highlighted by those who consider themselves nationalists or republicans. It would be a disaster for everybody from every background, every creed and every political point on the spectrum if a Border was imposed. It would cause divisions and conflict that would be disastrous from every point of view.

It is not clear to me what the Government will do in that context and it is clear to me that the other parties to this Brexit dilemma are not fully to be relied upon. It should be a statement of the absolute obvious, given the shambles in Westminster and the rotten politics of the Tory Brexiteers, that these people cannot be trusted not to crash into a situation where they may seek to reimpose a Border. They are obviously willing to sacrifice the best interests of this country or of peace for whatever bizarre political agenda the Tory right wing and the Tory Brexiteers are pursuing. The danger from that quarter is obvious but there is equally a danger which has been revealed in various comments and statements made by European leaders and by some comments and statements made by our Government. They say that we are doing everything we can to avoid a hard border, we are not making any preparations to do anything at the Border but then they say that it could be very difficult to avoid a hard border if there is a no-deal Brexit or that somehow a Border would become "inevitable" if there was a no-deal Brexit. By that, they mean that pressure would then come on to protect the integrity of the European Single Market and that the commitment to do that would then potentially lead to the Irish Government, on behalf of the European Union, erecting a Border to protect the integrity of the European Single Market.

We need to state categorically that this will not happen and it should be stated in this Bill. We should state that under no circumstances will it happen and that this particular dilemma can be sorted out by the European Union and Britain but for our part we are not participating in any shape or form under any circumstances with the erection of a border between the North and the South and that we will actively oppose any attempt to put a border between the North and the South. As I have said, we have heard comments from the Government itself at various times on this and we have also had a number of comments from people such as Merkel, Macron and leading figures in the European institutions saying that in order to protect the Single Market, a border might be necessary if we cannot do a deal and we can just blame Britain for that.

There is no doubt we could blame Britain and point at Britain for its recklessness, shambolic politics and the particularly rotten politics of the Tories, but the blame game is not good enough. We need absolutely to say we will not allow a border to happen under any circumstances as a result of pressure from anybody and that we will oppose it because peace on this island is more important than the Single Market or WTO rules or anything else. This is the most important point I want to make.

It does not surprise me that in recent opinion polls a majority of people in the country have expressed that they do not want to return to a hard border. If there is any suggestion from any quarter that this might happen there should be massive protests, not, as I have said, waving tricolours, although people can wave what they like as far as I am concerned, but on the basis that it would cause divisions and create the basis for conflict. Anybody who is progressive, who opposes sectarianism and who does not want to see a return to violence should mobilise to oppose any move towards a hard border. To say that anything such as this being suggested or any move in this direction should mean a Border poll is a basic democratic statement. The Government has suggested it would be dangerous or inflammatory to speak about this but to me it is a matter of basic democracy that if any suggestion of this sort was made, the people North and South should have the right to make a decision as to whether they want it to happen. There is no doubt that if they were asked that question, they would say they do not want it to happen. It is a basic democratic point to make and it is the view of the majority of people.

On the other substantial areas of the Bill, there are many provisions that are essentially trying to maintain the status quoin areas such as health services, which is to be welcomed, education, maintaining bus services, maintaining electricity provision and, with regard to harbours, basic practical provisions that will allow ships from Britain and Ireland to continue to land in each other's ports and other such measures.

I do have concerns about some of the tax measures the Government is taking to protect us on an economic basis. As has been said by others, of course we need to move to protect jobs. This is absolutely the case. I worry, however, that our notion of protecting these jobs seems to focus significantly on the maintenance of tax loopholes which, frankly, are problematic in the first place. These include research and development tax credits, which are one of the major means through which multinational corporations in this country avoid taxes. I am concerned about this and there is potential for abuse in it. I do not want to go from this to stating we should have a protectionist tax code, but I am concerned about potential abuses.

I am concerned about loans been given out to businesses where there are no guarantees about the jobs that would be retained and the standards and objectives being pursued by those private companies. There is a complete lack of emphasis on direct public investment in infrastructure and public enterprise in the areas on the Border likely to be affected and the need for particular investment in these areas to protect industry there against the possible impact of a no-deal Brexit. I am quite worried about these issues and I want assurances.

Their needs to be considerable scrutiny of tax loopholes. I take seriously Naomi Klein's concept of disaster capitalism, in other words, never letting a good crisis go to waste. There are certain sectors we know did this in the most recent economic crash. Vulture funds and big international investors took advantage of the crash. The Government facilitated them in this under the guise of stating it must act in an emergency. It actually introduced measures that allowed vulture funds and international investors to gobble up massive amounts of Irish property assets in particular, with, in my opinion, disastrous consequences. I am concerned there might be elements of disaster capitalism buried in the detail, especially in some of the tax loopholes and the lending facilities being proposed for IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland. I am not saying this is absolutely the case but the provisions need to be seriously scrutinised. I would like to see far more emphasis on tangible investment in infrastructure and public enterprise and the State directly protecting jobs.

I would like to hear precisely what is the issue with driver licences. The licences of UK licence holders living here at present will stand as driver licences here. There have been contradictory signals and warnings about UK driver licences not being recognised here. This would be a problem for people from the North and Britain who have UK driver licences. The AA has spoken about a legal patch being required but then slightly rolled back from it. We need answers on this. If necessary, there should be amendments to the Bill or legislation to ensure mutual recognition of driver licences is maintained.

In the area of health services, as well as maintaining existing cross-Border health services, it would be a very good measure on our part, and it could be included in the Bill, to offer free abortion services in the South to the women of the North. We need to show in a positive way the need to maintain the progressive trajectory we have seen in repealing the eighth amendment and the introduction of abortion services in this country. People will remember that at the time the talk was that the North would be next and women in the North are fighting for abortion services. Irish women in the North would have to pay to come down here for abortion services. We could include something in the legislation to state women in the North would be entitled to avail of abortion services in the South without charge.

See this speech in context