Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their questions. Once again, I welcome the fact that Prime Minister Johnson has distanced himself from the proposals for customs posts on either side of the Border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The withdrawal agreement, in the view of the Government, remains the best way forward but we are, of course, willing to listen to proposals that achieve the same objectives, that is, avoiding a hard border between the North and South, allowing the all-island economy to continue to thrive, and ensuring that North-South co-operation can continue as it does now, with free movement of goods and people north and south of the Border.

In the meetings and telephone calls I have had with Prime Minister Johnson, we did not discuss the non-papers or their content specifically but obviously we discussed the kinds of issues that arise in them, including customs, sanitary and phytosanitary controls, the Single Market and all those issues pertinent to the non-papers, which I still have not seen.

It is a fact that if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union without a deal, it will do so on World Trade Organization, WTO, terms. There are some enthusiastic hard Brexiteers who want to do exactly that. They want to leave without a deal and on WTO terms but if that happens, it will be their decision, not ours and certainly not that of the European Union. Those concerned will be responsible for any consequences that flow from it. If it happens, as the Tánaiste and I have said, we will not allow ourselves to be dragged out of the Single Market also. Our jobs, economy, livelihoods and industry are all dependent on our remaining a full member of the Single Market of 450 million people in 27 countries.

Perhaps I misunderstood Deputy Boyd Barrett, who seemed to be suggesting that we would allow ourselves to end up in the worst of all worlds and have the UK leave without a deal, involving customs and inspection posts on the UK side, and find ourselves out of the Single Market, facing checks in Rotterdam, Zeebrugge and Calais and tariffs and checks on our trade from north to south and east to west and with the Single Market. We certainly cannot allow ourselves, out of belligerence, to end up surrounded by a border on all sides.

That is certainly not a situation we want to be in. If we think about it from first principles, we will realise that there have really only ever been five ways of avoiding a hard border between North and South. The first option is a united Ireland-----

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