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

A number of these areas are EU competences. We rely on conversations with the European Commission on the collective contingency planning that the European Union does together. Many of the areas linked to trade require EU solutions and the licensing of hauliers is a good example. The EU has essentially stated that the current approach will be maintained for what will be a relatively short number of months. As long as EU hauliers are facilitated in the UK, then the EU will also facilitate UK hauliers. That provides at least a short-term contingency solution for hauliers who otherwise might not have been able to use the UK as a landbridge. These contingency plans, however, are not long-term solutions.

Ultimately, the medium and long-term solutions have to be negotiated politically. That is why we need to get back to ensuring that a withdrawal agreement can be ratified in order that we might create the time and space to be able to put this detail in place. While contingency planning by Ireland and the EU might deal with some of the issues, it will not resolve all of them in the long term.

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