Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Last Sunday, 22 May, marked the 24th anniversary of the simultaneous referenda on both sides of the Border on the Good Friday Agreement. The agreement was endorsed by 94% of people here and 71% of people in Northern Ireland. It was endorsed by 85% of those voting across the island as a whole. It was a transformative moment for the island. I remember the day vividly, as I expect most in this House do. Maybe for a younger generation, who do not remember at first hand the importance and emotion of the vote, it was captured in dramatic form in the final episode of Derry Girls last week.

The referenda gave democratic legitimacy to the Good Friday Agreement. The agreement itself gives us the frameworks to end violence, build cross-community representative government and manage the relationship in Northern Ireland between the North and South and between these islands on the basis of partnership, equality and mutual respect. Right now, the Good Friday Agreement is under strain, along with the spirit of partnership that underpins it. It is under strain from unilateral action already taken and threatened. It is under strain from those who refuse to operate its institutions. It is under strain from those who wrap their actions in the language of defending it but whose actions do not match those words. That is why we are here this evening. I thank this House for facilitating this debate.

At present, the British–Irish relationship seems to be lurching from announcement to announcement and stand-off to stand-off. With so much going on, there is a risk that we will normalise crises. It is worth stopping to reflect on the operation of the agreement and its wider context. Since the elections on 5 May, the DUP has refused to allow the formation of an Executive or even the election of a Speaker to get the Assembly up and running. This is at a time when Northern Ireland has so many bread-and-butter political challenges to face. Participation in the North–South Ministerial Council is one of the essential responsibilities attached to ministerial office in the Northern Ireland Executive. The DUP has boycotted the council since the autumn of last year.

Along with others, the DUP has real concerns over the operation and impact of the Northern Ireland protocol – I readily acknowledge that and will return to it later – but those concerns are no reason not to stand up and operate the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement that we all say we are committed to. Elsewhere we have heard how the balance of the agreement must be protected and that east–west must match North–South. One of the key east–west institutions of the agreement is the British–Irish Council. The agreement provides that the British–Irish Council will meet at summit level twice per year. The council does meet but the current British Prime Minister has yet to attend.

Then there are those for whom the protocol is a stalking horse. They can move seamlessly from criticism of the protocol to calling for the agreement itself to go. By and large, these are those with no political mandate who never supported the agreement in the first place and who seek to damage it from the outside. Treating the agreement lightly plays only into those hands. The Good Friday Agreement is not a flag of convenience; it is a solemn responsibility endorsed by our people and it is a shared responsibility.

From the outset, it was always clear that Brexit would profoundly impact Northern Ireland and relationships on this island. At an early stage, both the EU and UK agreed that a unique solution was required for Ireland as a whole. Reaching that solution required a long, detailed and difficult negotiation, with a shared focus on minimising disruption and a great spirit of compromise. The solution agreed jointly by the EU and UK became known as the protocol. However, given the misinformation about the protocol in recent weeks, it is important that we recall clearly and truthfully what it actually achieves and was designed to do. This solution, arrived at jointly, protects the Good Friday Agreement and the gains of the peace process. It fully and expressly recognises Northern Ireland’s constitutional status and the principle of consent protected in the Good Friday Agreement. It avoids a hard border on the island of Ireland, protects the common travel area and North–South co-operation and provides for no diminution of rights, safeguards or equality of opportunity for the people of Northern Ireland. Importantly, for thousands of businesses it gives Northern Ireland unique access to both the UK and EU internal markets. Despite all this and the fact that the British Government negotiated it, it now claims that implementing the protocol that we agreed together is incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement. This is disingenuous and dangerous.

I find it deeply disappointing that the British Government has said it intends to table legislation in the coming weeks that would unilaterally disapply elements of the protocol, which is now international law. This action is contrary to the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement, in respect of which genuine trust and partnership between both Governments have time and again proved crucial to shared progress. As the protocol is an integral part of an international agreement, such action would amount to a serious violation of international law also. I have urged the British Government to reconsider, weigh the risks that would flow from unilateral action and step back from this course of action, as it has done previously. Unilateral action is contrary to the wishes of the majority of people and businesses in Ireland; that is a fact. They can see the potential for jobs, growth and foreign direct investment in the period ahead.

This month the UK National Institute of Economic and Social Research found that Northern Ireland's economy was outperforming the rest of the UK and that this is attributable, in part at least, to the protocol. This corresponds with the clear message I hear in my engagement with Northern Ireland businesses, which have no desire to be caught up in the politics of Brexit or the protocol. They want stability and certainty so they can plan for the future. Unilateral action or the threat of it does not deliver this, but the opposite. I spoke to Foreign Secretary Truss last Friday, when I made clear Ireland's opposition to the UK breaching international law and said the UK needs to get back to talks with the EU.

There are genuine concerns about the protocol and I want to speak directly to the unionist community in that regard. The EU has consistently negotiated to reach an agreed outcome to address concerns held in Northern Ireland but we need a partner to do that with. The ball is in the UK's court and the onus is on it to indicate if it will move away from unrealistic demands it knows the EU cannot deliver and focus on the issue of greatest concern to the people and businesses of Northern Ireland, which is the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and removing barriers to that trade. The EU has put a creative package on the table to address these issues. These are bespoke solutions for moving goods and for greater engagement for Northern Ireland around the protocol. The EU remains ready to explore these ideas in depth and move beyond where we have previously been, but we need a partner to do that with. Without the British Government's co-operation and willingness to try to make it work, it will not work and the stand-off will continue.

This Government, through my office and others, is already working with the European Commission to try to ensure we respond to legitimate concerns in Northern Ireland, particularly on the issue of making a significant differentiation between goods we know are staying in Northern Ireland to be purchased and consumed there and those at risk of travelling into the EU Single Market, crossing the Border moving south. We can take a significant step forward in meeting the demands of many in the unionist community who want to see unnecessary checks gone on goods staying within the United Kingdom but, without a partner, it is hard to find a way forward.

On legacy, last week the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland introduced to the House of Commons the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill. The Bill had its Second Reading yesterday. The drafting, publication and introduction of the Bill is a unilateral act repudiating the painstakingly negotiated 2014 Stormont House Agreement. That agreement had the support of most parties in Northern Ireland and the two Governments, along with civil society buy-in. Dealing with the legacy of the Troubles was always going to be difficult but we had broad agreement on how to move forward together. We signed a treaty with the UK to aid with information recovery and brought in legislation in this jurisdiction.

The British Government now wishes to go it alone. When it flagged this intention last year in a command paper, we urged it to engage in good faith and find a way forward together, with the parties and the voices of victims and survivors at the centre of that process. It is regrettable that it has abandoned a collective approach. If it wishes to move away from what we agreed at Stormont House, it should do so by agreement with the parties, with representatives of those most directly affected by cases and with the Irish Government, which is a partner on this and many issues. Many families are upset by the publication of this Bill, including those waiting for inquests or pursuing civil litigation. Many will understandably feel that immunity, conditional or otherwise, is about protecting perpetrators instead of pursuing justice. Those concerns need to be heard.

There are serious questions to be asked about the draft legislation. Many in the political parties, civil society and academia have deep concerns. There is a fundamental question as to whether the legislation as drafted is properly compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR, and, by extension, the Good Friday Agreement, which committed to the full incorporation of those rights into Northern Ireland law.

The British Government, in a memo published alongside the draft Bill, states that it is an open question as to whether the court in Strasbourg would find an amnesty to be compatible with Article 2 obligations under the ECHR. To progress legislation while that remains an open question is an extraordinary approach. The proposed system of case review seems to be a significant step away from the Article 2 compliant investigations committed to at Stormont. On initial reading, I have concerns about the independence of the processes outlined in the Bill. This is in direct contrast to what was agreed at Stormont House, where we sought to guarantee the independence of the investigations and information recovery arrangements. In order for truth recovery and investigations to be trusted by both communities, they have to be seen to be independent. If they are not, they will not work, which is the biggest problem of all.

The legislation appears to give wide powers to the UK Government to subsequently change or end this process after only a few years in operation, while also ending legacy investigations and information recovery by any other route, including the PSNI, the Police Ombudsman, inquests and new civil cases. Any new system will be taken to the courts and tested. If it fails there, it will have done nothing to resolve these issues or progress reconciliation and justice. It will have added further years of limbo and heartache for families who have had far too much of both. The process for dealing with legacy cases should be about building, rather than eroding, trust and confidence. This Bill and its unilateral process does not do that. I strongly urge the Secretary of State to reconsider this approach and offer our team a partner in terms of looking at real alternatives.

Electronic travel authorisation has become a contentious issue. Provisions set out in the recently enacted UK Nationalities and Borders Act raise difficulties and cause us to question the British Government's commitment to borderless travel on the island of Ireland. Plans to establish an electronic system for travel authorisation, ESTA, that would apply to non-Irish and non-British citizens who wish to travel from South to North threaten to undermine the fluid nature of movement on the island and numerous areas of North-South co-operation, including tourism and cross-Border health service provision. As I have set out previously in this House, we have been engaging with our British counterparts for some time on this issue. I welcome recent announcements by UK ministers that they are keen to continue to engage with us in order to find a way forward. I assure Deputies that we will continue to prioritise this issue.

In the Queen's speech, the British Government outlined its intention to replace the Human Rights Act with a new bill of rights. By incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into Northern Ireland law in line with the Good Friday Agreement, the Human Rights Act fulfils an important role in Northern Ireland. It has been essential in creating confidence in Northern Ireland's political, policing and judicial structures over the past 24 years. Any diminution of the scope or efficacy of that incorporation would be a source of deep concern, North and South. I welcome the assurance in the earlier command paper that any reform will keep the ECHR rights incorporated into Northern Ireland law. We will watch that closely. We are concerned that the command paper includes a range of proposals which may result in the rights in the bill of rights being given significantly different meanings from the corresponding rights in the European Convention on Human Rights, such that the bill of rights may not fully incorporate the convention into Northern Ireland law or ensure access to courts and remedies for breach of it.

I am also concerned that the proposed introduction of a permission stage for human rights claims and the proposed restrictions on the availability of remedies for rights violations will undermine the commitment in the Good Friday Agreement to ensure direct access to the courts and remedies for breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights. I have written to the Secretary of State and I also raised these issues of concern when we met in March. There is time to work with our UK colleagues to get these issues right.

What I have outlined indicates a distinct shift away from partnership by the British Government in respect of Northern Ireland. This is a new and difficult context for the bilateral relationship, creating risk for our relations on and across these islands. I firmly believe that, in the longer arc of history, we are moving in the right direction, less bound by the conflicts and differences of the past but, right now, we are in a challenging place and it is important to call that out bluntly. The programme for Government underlines the importance of the bilateral relationship. Our relationship with Great Britain is unique. Our two islands are deeply intertwined. Away from politics, the relationship is thriving, through ties of kinship, commerce and culture, but in the political arena, things are far from where they should be. We knew that Brexit would present challenges. The Government has sought to pursue strong partnership as the basis for the new post-Brexit relationship with the UK.

While, of course, Brexit and the form of Brexit the UK has chosen have had a negative impact, the Government has been working to enhance the operation of the core east-west institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. These are, as outlined in the text of the agreement, the British-Irish Council and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, to both of which the Irish Government is absolutely committed. I also commend the work of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly which in its former iteration is also referenced in the text of the Good Friday Agreement.

Through the past two years, my Department has continued to invest in our diplomatic footprint in Great Britain. Our expanding Embassy in London, our newly launched consulates in Cardiff and Manchester and our new joint co-operation frameworks with Scotland and Wales demonstrate real commitment on the ground. We have also managed to protect long-standing common travel area arrangements post Brexit. We do this carefully, working together with the UK to avoid any inconsistencies between our obligations under EU law and the common travel area.

Ministers right across Government have prioritised engagement with the UK in the past two years. It is Government policy to do so. The Tánaiste brought our first trade mission since the start of the pandemic to London and, more recently, the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, undertook St. Patrick's Day programmes in Great Britain as a priority. The Government will continue to pursue the kind of partnership we need. We will continue to engage with a wide range of political stakeholders right across Great Britain. The work of Members of the Oireachtas is also important in this. The next meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, due to take place in Cavan in October, is an opportunity to invest in partnership and mutual understanding on many of these issues.

However, recent actions by the UK give us cause to reflect. We are not where we want to be. Our focus should be on developing new collaboration in areas such as green energy and international affairs. We should be renewing our partnership for the post-Brexit era. Those are the goals we set in the programme for Government and they are where I want us to get to, but the current stance of the British Government constrains us. That is the truth. We are fire-fighting rather than looking to the future.

At this challenging time we, along with our nearest neighbours, need to step back and reflect on how far we have come since the 1990s. We need to recall the value the peace process is about and what it has achieved. As John Hume stated in his Nobel lecture in 1998:

We are two neighbouring islands whose destiny is to live in friendship and amity with each other. We are friends and the achievement of peace will further strengthen that friendship.

The Good Friday Agreement and its values remain our bedrock. Partnership and commitment remain the only basis on which we can move forward together. This requires compromise on all sides and hard work between our two Governments. Most of all, it requires trust. Trust takes years to build up and can be undermined overnight. I caution that care needs to be taken in this space.

I wish to touch briefly on a couple of issues before closing. In the heated atmosphere of the past few weeks, leading up to and following the Northern Ireland election, I was accused of threatening violence in the context of Brexit. Nothing could be further from the truth and I challenge anybody to show otherwise. I have warned about unravelling the fabric of the agreement because I remember what went before. To remember those days is not a threat; it should be seen as a motivation. We must not forget the urgency of peace that brought us to the Good Friday Agreement. In fact, I was subject to the direct threat of violence when I was delivering a speech in Belfast in March - a speech about reconciliation and generosity between communities. A van driver was hijacked at gunpoint and forced to drive to where I was speaking with what he believed was a viable explosive device in the back of his van. I feel for that driver and his family. It is hard to imagine the trauma that he must feel. There is no room for violence or the threat of violence from any quarter in Northern Ireland right now. There is no place for the glorification of the violence of the past either.

Today, the delegation of the United States Congress is in Northern Ireland. I met the delegates in Dublin yesterday and they visited Leinster House. I wish to record my appreciation for their interest and their visit and what it represents. The United States has been a steadfast supporter of efforts to secure and, as important, to sustain peace on this island. That support is bipartisan in Congress and has extended to every administration for decades. While the peace process belongs first to the people and parties in Northern Ireland, that consistent support from the US has helped make it possible.

I know the Good Friday Agreement is a priority for every Member of this House and every political party. While we may differ on points of emphasis and detail, the Members of this House will never let domestic politics get in the way of securing sustainable peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland, or in the way of implementing the Good Friday Agreement itself. An earlier generation of political leaders gave us the Good Friday Agreement. They gave us the structures and mechanisms to embed the peace and to deliver functioning representative politics in Northern Ireland despite all the complexity and challenges they faced. They have entrusted its implementation to us. All parties, including the two Governments, need to subscribe to the values, the principles and the institutions of the agreement and not just refer to them. Northern Ireland needs functioning institutions and it needs them now. It needs an assembly and an Executive in place to address the issues of regular politics, issues that are challenging enough already, like healthcare, the cost of living, housing and so much more besides. It needs the mechanisms to deal with "practical politics, not visionary vapours", to borrow a phrase from David Trimble. The people of Northern Ireland need more than debate on constitutional questions, whether raised as threat or motivation. They face other immediate challenges.

The protocol is compatible with the Good Friday Agreement if it is implemented appropriately. It was designed to be. We can address any challenges its implementation represents with patience, partnership and real and honest negotiation from both sides. The same is true for legacy and the other challenges to the British-Irish partnership in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is our common ground, where we must work together to find shared solutions. In the past 30 years, the British-Irish partnership has delivered so much for Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland as a whole. I hope we can rekindle that partnership.

I believe we can and must do so. We owe it to a future generation to do that.

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