Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Níl ach 30 lá fágtha go dtí lá an Bhreatimeachta agus is deacair é a chreidiúint ach níl aon socrú ann fós idir an Ríocht Aontaithe agus an tAontas Eorpach. Chualamar inné go mbeidh an Parlaimint i Londain ag vótáil ar cheist an Bhreatimeachta an mhí seo chugainn. B'fhéidir go mbeidh sí ag déanamh cinneadh deireanach ag an am céanna. Tá sé dochreidte. Tá cúrsaí ag éirí tromchúiseach don tír seo agus don chaidreamh Anglo-Éireannach. Níl aon dabht faoi, dá mbeadh teorainn chrua ar an oileán nó idir an tír seo agus an Ríocht Aontaithe, beidh a lán fadhbanna againn, go háirithe beidh fadhb le tionscal an bhia, le tionscal na déiríochta agus len a lán tionscail eile. Caithfidh an Rialtas níos mó tacaíocht a thabhairt do tionscal an bhia, tionscal na déiríochta agus a lán tionscail eile. It is astonishing that we are 30 days away from Brexit and we still do not know what will transpire on 29 March 2019.

It is important to state at the outset, however, that for this country and this island, Brexit is a negative, regressive and disastrous event. The history of this island has been dominated by our relationship with our larger neighbour. That has been a difficult relationship over the years that our history has been recorded. It is a relationship that has unfortunately been dominated by colonisation, plantation, persecution and violence, but since independence and in particular, since our membership of the European Union, the relationship has improved. Today, the relationship between this island and Britain is more characterised by friendship, understanding and by reconciliation. Part of the reason why we have been able to reach reconciliation, understanding and friendship is because of our common membership of what was originally the European Economic Community, EEC, which today is the European Union.

The heightened example of the increased co-operation between the two countries arose with the Belfast Agreement that was signed some 20 years ago. That was an ingenious piece of diplomacy and statecraft. It allowed people in the contested part of this island, in Northern Ireland, to be able to reconcile the competing identities that were present in that part of the United Kingdom. People who had alignment or allegiance towards a unified Ireland were able to have that identity recognised through their Irish identity and through the provisions in the Good Friday Agreement. Similarly, people who wish to remain part of the United Kingdom could do so on the understanding that this country and the nationalist community in Northern Ireland accepted their entitlement to remain part of the United Kingdom until such time as a majority of people in Northern Ireland decided otherwise. An integral part of that was the common membership of the European Union. No one thought in 1998 that Britain would leave the European Union, and had that even been considered at the time, we can be sure that there would have been much more explicit provisions stitched into the Good Friday Agreement.

See this speech in context