Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Has the Government plans in place to replace the EU cross-border directive on the island of Ireland? Hospitals in the North have been told by the HSE just this week that they will not reimburse any new clients for operations after 1 January. Those who have had a consultation before the end of the year will be reimbursed if they are in the system, even if the procedure goes into next year, but not those who seek to attend for the first time after 1 January. The option to travel to the Continent for these procedures will still be there but that will prove much more difficult, especially in light of the current restrictions on travel, but even post Covid this is not an easy option. Many who travel up north for an operation do so for hip or knee replacements, cataract removal or back operations. All these make mobility difficult. Travelling to the Continent is not an option for the vast majority of people. The ideal, of course, would be that public waiting lists here would be shortened through addressing the many problems within the health service. The ideal is not to continue to have to pay taxpayers' money to private hospitals in the North or on the Continent. Until the health system here is overhauled, however, the option to travel to Belfast to have an operation needs to remain. People should not have to endure years of pain while awaiting an operation.

It states in the Government's Brexit readiness action plan, which was published in September, that the protocol protects the all-island economy and that under the protocol goods from the North will have free and open access to the EU Single Market. This, it seems, however, has been thrown into doubt. It has been reported that the Commission wrote to one Irish export sector stating, "For the purpose of EU free trade agreements, goods produced in the UK, including Northern Ireland, will not be considered as being of EU-27 origin as from the end of the transition period." I wish to express my deep concern and that of my party that it seems that the all-Ireland economy which has steadily been built up over the past 20 years since the Good Friday Agreement is under threat from Brexit, even with the protocol that was negotiated between the EU and Britain. Even though the protocol will see goods produced in the North adhering to EU standards, there is no provision included within it to continue the practice of northern components being added to goods produced in the South and then exported around the globe under EU free trade agreements. The "rules of origin" terms in many trade deals would only allow a product produced completely within the EU, that is, in the South, to benefit from tariff-free exports. This will leave some sectors of the all-island economy very exposed and certainly has the potential to significantly disrupt all-Ireland production.

The most exposed areas will be the constituencies along the Border, such as my own of Cavan-Monaghan, where co-ops such as Lakeland Dairies and Glanbia source a significant proportion of their raw milk from the North for their production plants in the South. Lakeland Dairies, for example, which has its head office in Cavan, has a milk pool of 1.8 billion l from over 3,000 suppliers on a cross-Border basis and is the largest dairy processing co-operative on the island of Ireland, providing employment to more than 700 people. If not rectified, this will have a serious adverse effect on the all-island economy, not solely but especially in the dairy sector, from export producers to farmers and all the indirect businesses supplying them, and could see a significant loss of employment in the Border region. The Government must step up its efforts to secure a commitment from the EU that a solution will be found to protect the all-island economy and that component products sourced in the North, which will have to adhere to EU standards, will be recognised as coming from the EU 27.

A key principle for the EU in the past two years of negotiations has been the protection of the Good Friday Agreement. This must extend to the all-island economy. I would further argue that this is another reason the only sensible solution for the island of Ireland is unity. Anything less will continue to have a negative impact on the futures of people on both sides of the Border. We in Sinn Féin believe that discussion and planning needs to start now. It does not make sense to wait for the outcome of Brexit when it is abundantly clear the outcome will be overwhelmingly bad. We believe the economic gains from building a shared island are quantifiable, and it would guarantee us a prosperous future.

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