Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At this point in any debate, most of the good points have already been made, so I will add my voice to everything that is commendable and obviously not to anything that I disagree with.

We all accept that the collective action by the European Union on vaccines has been very positive. We must ensure the roll-out of the vaccines. Several speakers referred to the difficulties there may be if we do not get a steady supply quickly enough in this State. There are difficulties in the sense that we have heard reports that poorer parts of the world will not receive the vaccines at the same time. Outside of the fact that this is utterly wrong and reprehensible, even from a purely selfish point of view, it is a bad idea. We must treat the pandemic on a global basis for it to be successful. That is straightforward.

On some level, it is welcome that the multi-annual financial framework is sorted, but there are concerns about the CAP, for example. A bye-ball may have been given on the rule of law, in particular as regards Hungary and Poland but if we are serious about the rule of law at a European level, we must look at the actions of the Spanish Government on Catalonian elected representatives. Its actions have been utterly reprehensible. If that is not a breach of the rule of law, I do not know what is.

Once again, we return to Brexit, the story that will not stop giving. We have reached the final hurdle. How many times have we been here before? We welcome the fact there have been moves and promises by what is not necessarily the most trustworthy British Government. That is saying something. The British Government will not now undermine the withdrawal agreement and the Irish protocol. That is a necessary mitigation. We have all heard today and in recent days about Brexit preparations. According to the National Audit Office the UK is an absolute basket case. The necessary preparations have not been done. We accept that will have a significant impact, in particular on Irish companies and others using the land bridge. We have also heard from the port companies, the Irish Road Haulage Association and numerous other groups. I add my voice to the fact that there is a need for an audit to be carried out. Eugene Drennan spoke today about the fact that he believes there has been insufficient collaboration between the stakeholders. He was referring to the hauliers, the port companies and the ferry companies and there are also the businesses that require these operations. We cannot ensure what type of Brexit will occur. It is going to be bad. We do not know how bad it is going to be, but we can introduce whatever mitigations are necessary to ensure we do not have chaos on this island.

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