Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Tá áthas orm labhairt sa díospóireacht seo. Tá súil agam nach gcuirfear an reachtaíocht atáimid ag plé anseo i bhfeidhm go brách na breithe mar ba thubaiste a bheadh ann d'Éirinn dá mbeadh Teorainn uair amháin eile taobh istigh den tír. Is fada a bhí muid ag fulaingt le críochdheighilt na tíre agus níl muid ag iarraidh dul ar ais aige sin. Tá dhá chineál deighilte ann: an críochdheighilt fhisiciúil agus an deighilt a raibh John Hume ag caint uirthi, is é sin an dheighilt idir pobail. Feictear domsa go bhfuil an dheighilt idir na pobail ó Thuaidh agus idir na haontachtóirí ó Thuaidh atá ar son Brexit - agus sin cuid mhaith de na haontachtóirí ó Thuaidh, 40% - níos doimhne ná mar a bhí cúig nó sé bliana ó shin. Agus gan ach mí anois fágtha, caithfear chuile iarracht a dhéanamh an Breatimeacht chrua a sheachaint agus cinnte a dhéanamh go dtiocfar ar réiteach. Mar atá ráite agam go minic, baineann cuid den pholaitíocht le meabhar agus le réasún agus baineann cuid eile de le mothú. Go minic níor mhaith le polaiteoirí a adhmháil cé chomh tábhachtach is atá mothú sa bpolaitíocht. Mura dtuigimid mothúcháin daonna, ní thuigimid ceann de na rudaí is tábhachtaí go gcaithfimid a thuiscint agus a thógáil san áireamh sa bpolaitíocht.

I hope we will never see this legislation put into action. A hard Brexit would inevitably mean a border would be imposed within our island, not only by Britain but by the European Union. As somebody who has seen a gradual disappearance – a blurring - of that line in practice over the years, the idea of hard border is totally unacceptable and poses challenges. I do not want to go down the road of predicting mayhem and violence. We do not know; it could happen. I certainly would not like any words of mine to be taken as saying it would be acceptable if it happened because violence does not solve any problems.

Over the past five years, several events have conspired to drive a new wedge between a large section of the unionist community and the nationalist community in the North and the rest of the island. As a republican, I am conscious of the famous lines from the 1916 Proclamation which are often misquoted. People refer to “cherishing the children of the nation equally” as if that meant children in the sense of young people. The line actually goes on to state “oblivious to the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which [have] separated [divided] a minority from the majority in the past.” In other words, it was promising that we, as Irish people, would be oblivious to the differences in the past and we would seek to foster co-operation, understanding and goodwill between all peoples living on this island.

From the small amount of work I have done in the North of Ireland, I believe a bigger distance exists between nationalists and pro-Brexit unionists, which make up the majority of unionists, than was the case five years ago. Whether people agree with Brexit or not, one has to respect other people's views. I certainly have never seen the continued long-term suspension of Stormont as being a favourable or positive matter. When people work together every day, no matter what their differences, they come to see each other as humans. By force of circumstances, they get to know each other by working together. In turn, it reduces difference. Unfortunately, when that day-to-day contact disappears, it creates barriers, indifference and moves people apart. That is never positive.

Over all the years I have been a Member, I have often remarked how people with strong views come into the House thinking they would not like people of various shades political colour. Instead, despite political differences which are real, they often find that as human beings they get on quite well. For that reason, I believe the lack of an Executive and an Assembly in the North has been retrograde.

Day-to-day power has been left to public servants and the British Government. No matter how willing a British Government might be, few British ministers, like the current Secretary of State admitted in a frank moment, really understand the politics of this island, North or South. Whereas many people derided the comment the Secretary of State made about not understanding how unionists would not vote for nationalists and vice versa, I thought it was an honest comment. If the truth is told, how many people in England really do understand what we take for granted, namely, the political make-up of the North of Ireland?

I still hope that everything we and the Government do will be to see if there is a way of avoiding a hard Brexit and facilitating the British in coming to a resolution. I listened to the debate earlier in the House tonight and much comment was made about chaos in the British House of Commons and so forth.

Consensus is fine. I am not against consensus if there really is one, while forced consensus is bad, of course. On the other hand, the political situation in Britain is the way it is. We must deal with the realities, not the way we might wish the world to be. I suppose most people in Ireland would have preferred that they had not voted for Brexit in the first place but that was their sovereign right as a people under their constitution, unwritten as it is, and we must respect that. Furthermore, we need to be realistic about the options they face in the House of Commons. There is the May option. To deliver that, she must get virtually all the Tories to vote for it and a few others, including the DUP. That seems a very tall order at the moment as it stands but who knows what comfort might be given without undermining the fundamentals. The second option is an extension. If we are to have an extension, one that leads to nowhere, has no plan behind it and does not lead us to the road, may mean we will hit the same dilemma again in five months or whatever period of time and does little beyond kicking the can down the road. Everything that should be done to facilitate progress in resolving this issue should be done. The third option is the one this Bill seeks to address but which would have absolutely horrendous consequences for this country, both in east-west relationships and North-South relationships. That is the worst option of all. The reality of the May deal is that the UK would be in the customs union and virtually in the Single Market although the customs union, in day-to-day business, is even more important. There would be time, a process and negotiation if and when they were to move to some other dispensation. That would provide a manageable situation rather than the over-the-cliff scenario.

On looking at the House of Commons and party politics, I must say that I have become convinced over some time that it is unlikely that May and Corbyn will come to some sort of consensus arrangement. One problem is that I do not believe Corbyn wishes to arrive at some sort of consensus arrangement but I also believe that if it is a choice between splitting the Conservative Party right down the middle and making an arrangement with Jeremy Corbyn, she will not split her own party down the middle. Even were she to do so, she would not last any time in politics. I do not know whether the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade can tell us if there has been any progress in squaring what seems to be an impossible circle in terms of giving some comfort in order that the May deal would go through or some other type of arrangement whereby there would be an extension with a firm purpose, plan and endgame. As we have seen in respect of the Executive in the North of Ireland, deadlines put back can sometimes lead nowhere. Once people got the idea that a deadline was not a deadline, all we had was crisis after crisis and at the end of those crises, there was no Assembly or Executive. I do not think that it is a good thing for politics on this island or on the neighbouring island or in Europe that we continue every five or six months coming to a crescendo only to then put it back again and so on.

Some people hope there will be a second referendum. Maybe there will or maybe there will not. I cannot tell the future but I do not think that it is a realistic proposition with the current political construct in Britain. While that might change in the future, we cannot be sure that in the event a second referendum, they would actually change their minds. No matter how much we disagree with their decision, they have a right to make it. Just as we made a decision in this country 100 years ago that we wanted out of the United Kingdom - to this day we are disappointed they did not respect it because they thought we would be a lot better off in their Union - it is incumbent on us to respect whatever processes they have and whatever decisions they make.

As I said at the outset, the emotional is very important here. Emotionally a border on the Border was always a no-no for any nationalists on the island, not only for pragmatic reasons but also for emotional reasons. Let us be honest, that is the reality. However we also must understand that for unionists of a strong unionist flavour, the idea of the negotiations being used by Europe to drive a wedge, as they would see it, between them and the rest of Britain was also a hugely emotionally charged issue. The harder the arguments were made here about the unacceptability of the Border, and I do not think that anyone doubts my view on that, and that therefore it had to be in the Irish Sea, the more inevitable that there would be a kickback. Something that I do regret is that over the past four or five years, there has not been more of a bilateral approach taken within this island to sit down to see how one squares what appears to be a very difficult circle to square. We should remember, however, that the Good Friday Agreement squared much more difficult circles than that. I always regret that we did not come at a common island position that could be explained to both to our neighbouring island and to Europe rather than what happened, which was that we negotiated through Europe and they negotiated through Britain and we did not have an all-Ireland view worked out as to how we would resolve what seemed to be an impossible dilemma. People might say that is not practical, that it is idealistic and that it is only the unionists but one either believes the people living in the north-east part of our country of the unionist persuasion are part of this great island family, even though they also see their identity as British and they do see themselves in that rather complex land, or we do not. If we do, we must see that through to the very end. I still hope that there might be resolution even at this late stage, without in any way compromising the issue of the Border. I think that many Northern pro-Brexit unionists get the issue about the Border because they know it, they live there, and it is more likely that some British Tories do not understand it. The very experience of living near the Border, as does the leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster, means she understands the real day-to-day dynamic. They do understand it but their pride and the situation in which they find themselves means that it was natural that they would resist a border down the Irish Sea.

The argument was made that the negotiations had to be between Britain and the European Union, but I have found in life that when one negotiates at one remove, the subtleties are lost. Perhaps we had to conduct the negotiations in that way, but we did not have to conduct the discussions in that way. I hope we will reach out, even at this late stage, to see how we can work out a way forward that would avoid a hard Brexit and a hard border on this island, one with which everybody on it could live.

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