Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is no secret to this House that, while an extraordinary amount of detailed work on how Ireland and the EU collectively would respond in a no-deal scenario has been completed and published, the most difficult issue to put a contingency plan in place for was always going to be how we would manage an all-island economy in the context of a no-deal Brexit. Those who maintain the argument that this could work easily with some alternative arrangements and without the use of the backstop or the principles behind it, which involve regulatory alignment, are making false arguments and have been doing so for months. There is no easy fix.

The British Government has produced a paper in which it says that it will not implement checks or apply tariffs in respect of goods travelling from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland in the context of a no-deal Brexit, but that would be a temporary arrangement until a solution was negotiated between the British and Irish Governments and the European Commission. There is no way the EU can provide the same assurance in respect of goods travelling from North to South because we cannot ignore the obligations and responsibilities that would be on the EU if Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, were to leave the European Union and therefore be outside of the Single Market and customs union. I am confident that the EU would have to apply the rules it applies to any third country outside of the EU to Northern Ireland, which would pose real difficulties on this island. That is why this week we have intensified our engagement with the European Commission on how we can work together to fulfil the dual obligations we have, first, to protect peace and relationships on this island and to prevent physical border infrastructure and, second, our obligation to protect the integrity of the EU Single Market. There is no alternative arrangement or magic solution that does the same job as the backstop, which it to keep the all-island economy functioning as it does today. Instead, we will be looking at mechanisms that will allow us to collect tariffs and which will provide reassurance to other EU member states that Ireland will not be dragged out of the Single Market by the UK crashing out of the EU. We cannot allow that to happen. We cannot protect the normal functioning of an all-island economy, which is what the backstop does, but we can certainly prevent the security issues caused by physical border checks from arising. We intend to avoid such checks.

We are working closely with the European Commission on this issue. I suspect that some of the conversation with Chancellor Merkel today will focus on this issue. I assure the Deputy that EU leaders, from Chancellor Merkel to President Macron, want to assist Ireland is solving this problem, recognising that there is a dual obligation that is very complicated and difficult to solve.

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