Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What Edwin Poots has done as Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in the North is absolutely scandalous and reckless. It flies in the face of international law and is in breach of an international agreement between the European Union and Britain and in breach of the protocol. It is very clear that the DUP, for some very narrow and nationalistic reason of its own, and the Tory Party in Britain have for some time had a hyped-up agenda to do everything they possibly can to destroy the protocol. I even saw the DUP today talk about how the protocol was costing millions of euro per day to businesses in the North. I know that the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and I and every political party that speaks to businesses in the North and their representatives get a different story. There certainly is not this cost the DUP talks about. Most businesses we talk to and deal with tell us that the protocol has been very good for them because it offers them the opportunity of trade with Britain on one hand and trade with the European Union on the other as well as the freedom from a lot of tariffs. It has been very positive in many ways. There have of course been some minor hitches, but those hitches are very small and can be easily dealt with. What the DUP is doing has therefore nothing to do with protecting the business interests of anyone, north, south, east or west; it is simply to do with its own narrow political agenda. That needs to be spelled out clearly.

The British Government needs to be called to book on this and to stand up to unionism to ensure that they do the right thing, that we can move forward and that the protocol is kept in place. It has to be because it is part of an international agreement to which the British Government signed up. Many people are angry. Over recent hours we have seen that the Assembly will now be pulled down and we will have no Assembly in place. Again it is this forward march, particularly, it seems, by the DUP, towards disaster at all costs. It wants to try to create as much chaos as possible. It is totally outside the interests of its own people as well as everyone else on this island. I will give the Minister the opportunity to make very clear the Irish Government's position and the European Union's position on this.

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