Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will use this time to address the issues caused by Brexit here and across the world. In June 2016, England and Wales voted to leave the European Union and this vote would change the landscape of the EU, the UK and Ireland for years to come. In effect, the North of Ireland and Scotland were forced out of the EU against the will of their people. Four years on, we are still talking about Brexit. The referendum took place long before I was elected to the House, yet here I am addressing the Dáil on the matter. It is madness.

The British Prime Minister and his Cabinet have long claimed they are Brexit-ready but the reality is the complete opposite. They have no plan and they are not ready for 1 January next year. Leaked documents in the past number of days indicate that internal government notes have warned about delays at the port of Dover if there is a no-deal Brexit. Regardless of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's views on Brexit, it is time that we on this side of the water put down our foot and got tough on the matters at hand. We must show leadership here and right across the world, indicating that we will not agree to anything less than full acceptance of the withdrawal agreement, including the full protection of the Good Friday Agreement.

The Six Counties cannot and must not be used as a bargaining chip in all this. In a week when we saw two documentaries on RTÉ, "Unquiet Graves" and a programme on the Holy Cross schoolgirls, we know we cannot allow any agreement that would see the return of any hard border on this island.

The Good Friday Agreement has been hailed throughout the world as an agreement that was well ahead of its time. However, the stories told in these documentaries and countless others show there are still unresolved grievances. The lack of discussion of these issues in any public forum in the past several years, particularly following the airing of these documentaries, has been deafening. Politicians in the Twenty-six Counties have engaged in scaremongering, arguing that a united Ireland is something to shy away from. This is not the case. Brexit has clearly shown why we need to start discussing a united Ireland. Provision was made in the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 to eventually pave the way to this discussion. Now it is time to start it. We cannot allow more than 20 years of peace to be unravelled by more British political incompetence.

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