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

These are very fair questions and questions we need to answered. Let me explain what happened here. We made a conscious decision with the European Commission that we would not finalise what would essentially be an emergency management plan in a no-deal scenario in terms of facilitating trade on this island if Northern Ireland is outside the customs union, the Single Market and the European Union and the rest of the island is very much in it and wanting to protect its place in it. For good reason when it became obvious a number of months ago that there would be an extension, the European Commission and our team agreed we would pick this up again over the summer because these are unpalatable and politically controversial issues. The idea that we would publish a plan months out, when there is a good chance we could avoid a no deal, and create all the damage, friction and anxiety that would come from plans like this does not seem to make much sense to me. We have had an honest conversation over the summer with the Commission. It is now moving into detailed discussions in terms of what is the bare minimum we need to do to limit disruption to protect Ireland’s place in the Single Market in a no-deal scenario. We will explain to people how we think that will work once we have the agreement with the Commission. It would have been crazy to have done this months ago and to have all the politics around this issue focus on it, and some people trying to latch on to it as an alternative arrangement that may be somehow okay, which it clearly is not. It is significantly sub-optimal to a regulatory alignment approach that prevents the need for Border infrastructure at all. I can assure the Deputy we will be upfront about it once we get an agreement with the Commission around what we need to do and the timelines for that because both of those things are important and we will share it with Opposition Members when we can.

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