Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I cannot begin my contribution as I would normally begin discussion of a Bill by saying that I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to this Bill because it is one that nobody in this House welcomes and it has been brought about by an event that is entirely damaging to this country and over which we have no control. We must mitigate that damage to the best of our ability.

As the Minister has indicated, it is the second Bill of this type. On balance, the first Bill was probably the best way to approach the issue. It was an omnibus Bill incorporating a variety of Departments where we could take an omnibus approach to preparing for the impact of Brexit on all aspects of our country, economy and society. Nine Ministries were initially involved in the briefings given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs. This has now increased to 11 Departments. An array of complex and varied issues continue to be identified. The purpose of the Bill is to remedy these issues to the best of our ability and to mitigate the harm Brexit will do.

There are two basic principles to continue post Brexit and these are underscored in every aspect of the legislation. The first is the maintenance and continuance of the common travel area, which has been a feature of relations between Ireland and the United Kingdom since the inception of Ireland as an independent entity. We have maintained a common travel area. We have used that phrase but it is a misnomer because it involves a much deeper and more comprehensive relationship between the citizens of our two nations than simply the right to travel into each other’s territory.

It involves the rights of housing, health access and even the right to vote. That is a fundamental principle which not only has to be maintained but which must also be codified for the first time in light of the fact that we have obligations to our EU partner nations and their citizens. Codifying any long-standing relationship like that is a difficult thing to do in law but this Bill and the previous legislation, and all the bilateral treaties and agreements that had been drawn up bilaterally between Departments over the past four years, embedded the meaning of the common travel area in a very positive way.

The second principle is the issue of North-South co-operation, which is fundamental. It was built and hinges upon the negotiated settlement and the Good Friday Agreement, and the maintenance of that being the cornerstone of our approach to any agreement with the United Kingdom on how we are to continue to deal with one another, either politically or economically. As others have stated, people, including many in the United Kingdom, doubted the degree of solidarity that Ireland would enjoy. We were seen as a peripheral nation that economically was not all that important to many in Europe, or so it was thought. For the concerns of Ireland and the maintenance of the fundamental principles of a border-free island, and all that underpinned the principles of the Good Friday Agreement, not only to be front-loaded but put absolutely as a requirement for any progress has taken many by surprise and has strengthened the view of the people of Ireland of the importance of the European Union as a bulwark for our defence of our interests. The old adage, ní neart go cur le chéile, is certainly true on the international stage. We are part of an important grouping who, to use American parlance, have our back on fundamental issues that are important to us.

There are other issues that will need further work including maintaining regular parliamentary and ministerial contact when the United Kingdom no longer attends European Council meetings and there are not normal bilateral meeting between Ministers. Many of us have had the privilege of attending European Council meetings on a monthly basis and understand the personal relationships that can be forged and the importance of them. As we have said on other occasions, we need to explore mechanisms between parliamentarians and Ministers to ensure that those personal interactions are not only maintained but also that they are developed into the future. One of the ideas that has been posited is that we might consider having direct meetings with UK Ministers in and around the time of Council meetings if they are willing to do that.

I want to make brief mention of some of the provisions in the legislation. It is impossible to make any meaningful, section-by-section analysis in a 20-minute contribution but I want to pick up on one or two of them. On health, the common travel area provisions are important. The Minister touched upon the absolute underscoring of the rights of Northern Ireland citizens to maintain the privileges they have, in essence, in all the various European programmes which they will continue to have access to and beyond that. I refer, for example, to the right to have health expenses reimbursed throughout the European Union if they are on holiday there and become sick or within countries that are part of that relationship such as Switzerland.

In terms of justice, extradition was once an extremely fraught issue in this jurisdiction. Those of us who are long enough around remember how hard-fought some extraditions were in the bad old days until the advent of mechanisms such as European arrest warrants and so on. It is important that we would have simple extradition mechanisms that will ensure that we do not have to go through diplomatic channels to do what is a justice matter. I hope the provisions of this legislation will achieve that objective. Until we see how this plays out in reality, we will not know for sure.

I am concerned about one aspect and I would be interested in hearing the Minister for Justice's commentary in respect of it. I refer to the maintenance of the Dublin Convention procedures. If we have a difficult break-up, and I have said personally to the Minister, who is an optimist by nature, and we all have an expectation, if not a hope at least, that there will be a very sound and strong relationship post Brexit and that there will not be a difficult collapse of the current talks and no deal. In those circumstances, however, where individuals have come into this jurisdiction from the United Kingdom and the Dublin Convention provisions pertain and people are removed from this State to the United Kingdom for asylum processing, will that continue to be the case? If there is a difficulty with regard to any agreement will that be a part of the suite of measures on which the United Kingdom will simply say they will no longer co-operate on those matters?

The legislation provides that divorces transacted in the United Kingdom or in Gibraltar after January of 2021 will be recognised in this jurisdiction.

As I said, there are areas which, despite the exhaustive work of Departments, will probably arise in the months and years subsequent to the end of the transition period and the complete withdrawal of Britain from the legal structures of the European Union. An issue that I have repeatedly raised as being of immediate importance is that of connectivity. I know the Minister and others have listened to what I have said, namely, that the first great test of our preparedness will be our ability to import and export from the island of Ireland. I have received from the Department of Transport the Irish Maritime Development Office analysis report to the Department of Transport on a reassessment of Ireland's maritime connectivity in the context of the Brexit and Covid-19 challenges. I have discussed this report with the Irish Maritime Development Office since its publication last week. I have to say I am not entirely convinced. Its basic conclusion is that we have enough capacity, even in the event of there being a fundamental disruption of the land bridge, to continue to import and export. The mechanism that is envisaged is that vessels that are currently used on the Irish-UK line will simply be repurposed to European ports. I am not sure that is as simple as is believed and set out in that process. In any event, it would have implications for our exports directly into Britain if those vessels were no longer available to bring our biggest trading partner, the goods from Ireland, to the United Kingdom. The same vessels cannot be used on two separate routes at the same time; that is not possible.

There are fundamental issues of connectivity that have yet to be resolved. I am raising them yet again today because I intend to continue to push this until I receive an assurance that we have sufficient capacity and that there will not be difficulties. The premise of the analysis carried out to date is that we have asked the ferry companies and they say all is well. That is not proper contingency planning. I know it is a tad simplistic and those who were behind the production of this comprehensive document might have other things to say about that but that, in essence, is my shorthand take on that and I want to make that point as strongly as possible.

I want to raise one other issue before I talk about the generality of the discussions, that is, the proposed provision in the Bill put forward by the Department of Finance.

The Department of Finance has proposed to amend section 58 of the Finance Act 2010 by including a new section, section 64, on page 42 of the Bill before the House. That is unnecessary. I have spoken to the Department about it. It would be extremely negative. The section would raise the minimum expenditure required to qualify for the VAT retail export scheme — that is, tax free shopping — from €0, which is the current figure, to €175. That means to qualify for the tax-free rebate as a tourist, one has to spend at least €175. This is against all the trends and it will have the greatest impact on small retailers and those that are now enduring the greatest degree of hardship under the Covid pandemic restrictions. These include small shops and jewellery stores selling Irish jewellery, Irish knitwear and crafts and other Irish products and souvenirs. After the enactment of this legislation, the minimum requirement will be that tourists who wish to qualify under the scheme will have to spend €175 in these shops. By analysis, that will exclude 80% of current expenditure in them. It would be disastrous for them. I genuinely ask the Minister to examine this. The objective is to simplify the administration. I will talk to the Department about it.

A separate section that deals with the United Kingdom would also have the effect of exclusion. That is perhaps justifiable but the broad impact, or basically the killing off of tax-free shopping at a time when we are looking for every incentive to be given to small traders, is quite unacceptable. It is the one aspect of this legislation I must draw attention to. The Minister asked us to be honest and come to him with issues so I ask him to re-examine this. If there is a difficulty in six months, let us look at it again. Let us not compound the difficulty for the traders in question right now. They have all contacted all of us regarding this. The imposition, which is for ease of administration, is unacceptable. The focus is to ensure that tourists or other travellers coming from the United Kingdom will not avail of tax-free shopping. That could be cut off in and of itself. That is done in a separate section but killing off the entire tax-free process to address the issue in question is unnecessary and it will have consequential damage that is unacceptable. We will come back to that, no doubt, on Committee Stage.

I want to talk generally about the position on the discussions that are ongoing this week and that I hope will come to a conclusion. The outstanding issues obviously concern the so-called level playing field. We obviously require goods that have open access to the Single Market to be compliant with the standards that apply in that market, including environmental and labour standards. The related requirement is for governance. I am afraid the introduction in the British Parliament of Part 5 the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill makes the requirement for governance all the more necessary because if a deal is done with a sovereign nation and it feels at liberty to simply undermine it fundamentally in law, arbitrarily and without discussion, there has to be some mechanism to ensure that if another deal is done, there will be a way of enforcing it. That is why the level playing field and governance issues are so important.

The third issue is that of fisheries. I had expected some time ago that this might be capable of being addressed. I have said at many public forums that the Minister for Foreign Affairs is an expert on the life-cycle of the mackerel. I have heard him give erudite explanations of its spawning grounds, maturing grounds and catching grounds. That is good because fish obviously do not belong to anybody. They operate in open seas and we need to have a semblance of reality regarding fisheries. I have said publicly before that when it was put to the Vice President of the European Parliament on a British television programme that Britain was going to catch its own fish, her retort was that she hoped the British would eat them. The EU comprises two thirds of the market for fish caught by the British.

A semblance of the reality has to be reached in regard to these three issues. A degree of flexibility on both sides will be achieved. I, too, am an optimist. Ultimately, these matters will not go away. They are fundamental. We are down to the nitty-gritty of the final round of discussions. We can be flexible all we like but there are fundamentals on which we cannot yield. We cannot have circumstances in which goods and services are allowed access in a way that undermines the fundamental tenets of our Single Market, namely, in respect of the rights of workers, environmental standards and so on. Britain says it has no interest in undermining any of these but that will mean it can have some sort of external mechanism to ensure it does not come about.

I look forward to the detailed discussions on all these matters over the coming weeks. Unfortunately this Bill, unlike the last omnibus Bill, will be enacted and required because the inevitability and reality are that the UK will end its transition period on 1 January. We have to make preparations for that and make the best of what we have to face.

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