Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was not sure if Brexit would be formally discussed at the European Council meeting until I heard the Taoiseach's speech. We would all accept that Brexit casts a long shadow. Polls in the Westminster election will close at 10 p.m. tomorrow and we should get the first exit polls shortly after that. This will occur during the European Council meeting. I am sure that the Taoiseach and all the other Heads of State and Government will be eagerly following these developments closely. I want, first and foremost, to wish all the Sinn Féin candidates well. We won a historic seven seats in the 2017 elections and we hope that we can retain these seats and even gain one more.

I note that the Taoiseach has endorsed a candidate that Deputy Micheál Martin was canvassing for at the weekend in Derry. The Taoiseach indicated his support for more Irish MPs in Westminster rather than here in the Dáil, which I find bizarre coming from an Irish Taoiseach. The electorate in the North will have their own say tomorrow. I want to put on record my concern regarding the hate campaign that was waged against John Finucane. This was organised loyalist intimidation. It is wrong, dangerous and needs to be condemned. This election is about the toxic Tory-DUP Brexit agenda and their disastrous cuts to public services. Since the referendum, Sinn Féin has worked with the other pro-remain parties to send a clear message to the British Government, the EU, the Irish Government and the US, that the DUP does not speak for everyone in the North. Sinn Féin has stood up for the majority who voted to reject Brexit. Westminster is undoubtedly a house of dysfunction and farce. It is increasingly clear that Irish interests will never really be taken seriously there. Those who argue for any self-respecting Irish democrat to insert themselves into that mayhem are stretching the boundaries of political sense and reality.

Since the referendum and the ideological crusade on which the Tories and the DUP have embarked, we have consistently said there is no such thing as a good Brexit. All parties here have worked to secure unique arrangements for the North to offer some protection for the economy, to avoid any hardening of the Border and to protect the Good Friday Agreement. We have never said these arrangements are perfect. It imposes an EU exit for the North against the express wishes of the people there, but I am confident that the agreement will ensure that there is no hard border on the island of Ireland. We believe that partition has failed and the only complete solution is Irish unity.

Whatever transpires after the election in Britain, significant and ongoing challenges will face us. I note that the Tánaiste felt the need to tell journalists this week after the EU Foreign Affairs Council that there is little chance that future relationship deal between the EU and Britain could be hammered out before the end of December 2020. The Tánaiste is correct. This will be a difficult negotiation. The rhetoric from Boris Johnson that everything can be wrapped up by December 2020 is a dangerous attempt to fool the British public. Ireland's interests in any future trading relationship will have to promoted and protected. We must strategise for east-west trade to ensure we get the best economic and political outcomes for our island. We must ensure that there is never any barrier to trade and movement on this island. Ultimately, we need to start planning for Irish unity. The Taoiseach should start this process without delay. The Irish people and civil society are far ahead of the Government on this issue. We need to make up for lost time. If a Sinn Féin Government is returned after the quickly approaching general election in this State, we will do just that. It should be a core priority of any future Government. It is now clear the British Government is involved in an increased and sustained move to undermine the Good Friday Agreement. The example of the DeSouza judgment demonstrates that. This cannot be tolerated. The Government must be proactive and staunch in defending our peace agreements and the hard won rights of Irish citizens.

This European Council meeting will also focus on climate change. Ireland's record to date regarding climate has been awful. The Environmental Protection Agency published a report in October that revealed this State exceeded its carbon emissions budget by 5 million tonnes in 2018, and is moving further from its climate commitments. It was the second year in a row that we missed our targets. This shows a systemic political failure to take climate change seriously. We need a paradigm shift in State investment in public transport. We should be leaders in the fight to reduce carbon emissions and to mitigate climate change. We should be heading to this meeting with clear and positive results on our climate targets after undertaking significant change. Instead, the Taoiseach will go there as the head of a Government that continually fails to meet its own and international targets. The Government continues to sell off our public transport network and to neglect investment in new rail lines, particularly outside Dublin where they are most needed. The Government's agricultural policy shift in 2015 to encourage more dairy and milk production has added to emissions. Under the Government's watch, afforestation is also missing its targets and has been falling since 2016. The sole response by the Government is to introduce a regressive carbon tax, even though the alternatives are simply not there. It is time for the Taoiseach to wake up and get serious. Targets for 2050 and beyond are no good. We need to ensure that transformative and ambitious targets for 2025 and 2030 are put in place and met in Ireland and across the EU.

I encourage the Taoiseach to raise issues facing the Palestinian people at this European Council meeting. Israel continues to completely ignore international law, build illegal colonial settlements in Palestine, and continues to implement an apartheid regime in Palestine. Words of condemnation are not enough and action is needed. On this week five years ago the, Dáil unanimously passed a Sinn Féin motion calling on the Government to recognise the state of Palestine. Successive Fine Gael-led Governments have ignored this democratic demand from the Dáil and from the Seanad. Other EU countries, such as Sweden, have taken this step in recent years, yet again this Government continues to sit on its hands.

This European Council also needs to discuss the current situation in Malta. There have been huge protests in Malta in recent weeks against the Government of Joseph Muscat. This is because of mounting concerns surrounding the alleged involvement of his former chief of staff and other employees of the office of the Prime Minister in the murder and its subsequent cover-up of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. She was investigating corruption that went to the heart of the Government before she was assassinated. Her family said the Prime Minister had been left deeply compromised and should resign because he had failed to take action to clean up politics in Malta. They argued that as long as he remained in place, a full investigation into her death was not possible. A European Parliament delegation visited Malta last week and offered scathing criticism of the Maltese Government's handling of the situation. It declared that trust had been severely damaged. This issue must be discussed at the European Council meeting. I urge the Taoiseach and his officials to address the issue formally and also informally outside meetings. It continues to be a blight on Europe and needs to be addressed in a formal way.

See this speech in context