Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, in response to Deputy McDonald's questions, I welcome the fact that we are having a North-South Ministerial Council on Friday, the first in three and a half years. I look forward to it. I hope it can create a structure that will help us deal with the undoubted difficulties, as Deputy Niamh Smyth pointed out, that Brexit has brought about in respect of relations on the island and in terms of its economic and social impact. We must navigate and manage the island in a post Brexit situation and the North-South Ministerial Council gives us a structure to manage the issue as best we can, notwithstanding different perspectives on it from different participants at the council.

On the issue of the public health emergency that Deputy McDonald correctly raised, there is a memorandum of understanding between the Chief Medical Officers of the North of Ireland and the Republic. We need to flesh out what we mean by a single approach. One of the challenges here is that there are, de facto, two jurisdictions. There is an Executive and Assembly that are linked into the wider UK medical advice system. The CMO in Northern Ireland works with the Scottish, English and Welsh CMOs and has a good relationship with our CMO as well. However, we must have a reality check of what is possible and what is not possible, and be honest with people in that regard. In terms of a common standard of checks and balances, if we are honest about the evolution of this, and I must make this point, what has transpired is that the Republic has had a much stricter travel guidance than anywhere else. It is certainly stricter than what is in the North at present as well as what is in the UK. The UK is now beginning to change with regard to Spain because of the spike in the numbers there. It is important that we collectively recognise the dangers that travel can present by creating spikes in the number of cases on the island. I believe we must try to work towards a joint approach in that regard.

I received a letter from the First Minister and deputy First Minister in respect of the British-Irish Council meeting. We have no difficulty with or objection to that but, again, that might not resolve all the issues in respect of the common travel area or different travel guidance issuing from different de facto jurisdictions. That is the position we are in. We share common advice with Northern Ireland in that we are telling people that the safest option is not to travel during Covid-19, and that will remain the case. On the operational issues with, for example, people using Dublin Airport and so forth, we have to build up a stronger presence there. That work is under way in terms of an electronic passenger location mechanism, the Department of Health working on randomised testing at airports and other measures designed to limit and reduce travel in and out of the country. That work is ongoing.

The position with the reopening of society is how to live with Covid-19 while at the same time having a reasonable quality of life for people and reasonable, sustainable economic activity. The CSO figures for May and June are interesting. They show that in June, in particular, there was a dramatic increase in retail activity over the previous month. It is the highest on record. The quarter is not comparable to the same quarter last year yet, but it shows what is the balance. As we reopen the economy we can see some benefits from it, but we must be clear that the fastest way to damage the economy again is to have a re-emergence of the virus in a significant form. In terms of the all-island approach, there are challenges in getting a common standard. It is not as simple as saying it. That is the point. That has been the story, but there has been much closer engagement between the two CMOs.

I take Deputy Niamh Smyth's point about the polarisation that has occurred. We want to try to create an approach that will constructively enable people who have come from different perspectives on the Brexit question to work to make this work for the island of Ireland. There is an opportunity through the protocol being adhered to, in particular for Northern Ireland, to get the best of both worlds, with access to the Single Market into the future. We will work towards that.

Deputy Boyd Barrett referred to the vision of James Connolly, which was a noble vision. I take the Deputy's point about the National Health Service and the disparity between the two health services. One of the ideas behind the shared unit is to work on the principles of the Good Friday Agreement around the set of three relationships, the British-Irish relationship, the North-South relationship and the relationship between the two communities in the North. Another of the ideas is to work out practical issues such as how we share health services on the island of Ireland. At the meeting I had last week with the First Minister and deputy First Minister, we discussed issues such as access to Altnagelvin Hospital for people from the Republic and cardiac surgery for children on an all-island basis. I am in to making the incremental progress that we need on a lot of these issues.

As for education, we have made progress in terms of patrons of education, Educate Together, Gaelscoileanna and the Church of Ireland. We have different systems here. The North of Ireland has not developed integrated education to the degree people would have hoped.

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