Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is understandable that during this crisis, we seem to have somewhat lost track of other threats and challenges that are coming down the line, which will also have an impact on our quality of life and on the prosperity of our country. Though it has perhaps not received the attention it should have, it is clear that the negotiations to agree an orderly departure for the United Kingdom from the European Union have somewhat run aground in recent weeks. Covid-19 has made co-operation on the protocol and future relationships even more important.

It would appear that it would be more than a little trite for me to implore the actors in these negotiations to engage in talks with renewed vigour and good faith considering the inability of parties in this Chamber to include every party in their political discussions for a new Government. The current pandemic has thrown into sharp relief how seismic changes can be visited upon us quickly and in a way we could not truly prepare for. However, Brexit is not an unknown threat and we have been grappling with it for almost four years. Similarly, the impacts that will be felt due to climate change in the next decade are also anticipated, even if they are not fully clear. Those two escalating hazards are not mutually exclusive. The UK's departure should not and cannot be employed as a free pass on agreements made through the international climate accord, the Paris Agreement. The UK exports more than €300 billion worth of goods and services to the EU and accounts for over 30% of goods and services imported into Ireland.

The manufacture of goods, the use of raw materials, the ethical employment of labour and the cradle to cradle life of these exports must be considered part of those Paris commitments and must be a building block of any economic pact between both parties. The international obligations undertaken by the United Kingdom in 2016 under the Paris Agreement should be factored into an emissions reduction pact as an essential element that underpins any trade agreement.

This week we witnessed a further worrying deterioration in relations as the EU's request to create a working office in Belfast was resisted by senior British officials. The reality is that achieving a viable and efficient framework for the movement of goods and services in an all-island manner will require an integrated and bipartisan approach. It is also worth pointing out, and I say this as somebody who worked for five years in Belfast, sometimes living there and sometimes commuting, that there is a huge cohort of people and businesses from the EU who deserve representation in the place where they choose to make their home. Both Irish citizens and those from our wider European family could, and should, rightly expect to be able to access some supports while living in a country so closely aligned with those around it. Until last January there was a European Commission office in Belfast, so to object now to the establishment of the Belfast office of the EU delegation to the UK is remarkable.

Although the deadline for departure looms we appear to be still at a relatively early stage in the arrangements for cross-border co-operation after the UK has left the European Union. It may be that some of this difficulty could simply be due to an ongoing vagueness around what exactly is proposed for these border supports. It is vital that this vagueness is addressed in both the envisaged arrangements for border controls and the integration of climate targets under any agreement.

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