Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In response to Deputy Doherty and to reinforce what I said earlier, this scheme is designed to be available to European Union countries. He is absolutely right that the United Kingdom has made the decision to withdraw but that does not negate its need to look after the people within its own jurisdiction. Deputy Doherty, being from an Ulster constituency, is very cognisant of the people who, as he said, go back and forth across the Border every day. They are people who have to be brought into the discussion here. It is something that I will bring to the attention of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe. I have asked the officials that are here to bring it to his attention and to that of the Tánaiste because there is an upcoming North-South Ministerial Council meeting and there has been a bit of a vacuum there. The Deputy may agree with me about the voicing of concerns given that the North-South Ministerial Council has not been able to function due to the Covid situation. There is an Executive now, which probably created a vacuum as well, so there might have been an unfortunate delay in voicing the concerns of the people to whom Deputy Doherty refers. It is important as well to draw attention to the references in the programme for Government that set out what this Government wants to achieve on an all-island basis into the future.

Certainly future leadership can be taken from the harmony in the response of the Chief Medical Officer and the North's chief medical officer to the pandemic, with regard to other directions, whether supports or otherwise, that might be needed from an economic point of view. Lessons have been learned about what can be achieved when an all-island approach is taken. The Government has not been, and will not be, found wanting on articulating the views of the people of the North who, as the Deputy has quite rightly said, voted to remain in the EU but are being taken out of it. It is not just the people in the North; the people in the adjoining counties in the Southern jurisdiction who travel to work there will also be impacted. We are very conscious of this.

The Deputy is correct that significant goodwill has been expressed by the EU. We only need to consider all of the visits done in the immediate aftermath of the deadline for the first crash-out, when Ministers with responsibility for European affairs and finance and Prime Ministers stood on what is a borderless border and saw it for themselves. The Government is in a strong position to articulate on behalf of the people of the North. We have taken a position on the programme for Government on how we hope to achieve this. The North-South Ministerial Council is a vehicle to do this. The voices of Northern businesses, chambers of commerce and business associations are articulating through their MLAs and the Executive that they want to see co-operation and this is all helpful.

At the end of the day, no more than the pandemic and virus did not recognise the difference between Tyrone and Monaghan, it does not matter whether a person's income is in Tyrone or Monaghan. They still have to raise children, pay a mortgage and go out to school in the morning. The Government is a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, which ultimately underpins all of this. The Deputy is absolutely right that there is a compulsion and an obligation on us and we take this seriously. If the House can respond to what the Deputy has suggested in the all-party mechanism available to the House we will be doing the people of the North some service.

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