Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this extremely timely and relevant debate. It is such a vast debate that I will not be able to address all the points I would like to make. I will simply focus on the latest row over the implementation of the post-Brexit agreement, known as the Northern Ireland protocol. I welcome the fact that the British foreign secretary, Ms Liz Truss, is visiting Belfast. I am sure she is very grateful to be away from the chaos in Westminster, given what we have been seeing on our television screens and the various reports.

I was very taken by an article by the foreign secretary this morning in The Irish Times. In the article, she lays out a position similar to the one she laid out last week. The tone of the article is welcome, which should be acknowledged, and many of the points are not too unfamiliar, but let us be frank that the article is absolutely laced with contradictions and the sort of revisionism that has sadly become all too familiar among members of a very politically driven British Government at this stage. I would like to refer to a few of the points made. In paragraph 3 of the article, the foreign secretary refers to the need for all three interlocking strands of the Good Friday Agreement "to function successfully". Of course, as has been mentioned umpteen times, we do not have a power-sharing government at Stormont on the basis of cross-community consent. Indeed, this whole sorry Brexit process quite clearly does not have cross-community consent, considering that the majority of people in the North voted against it.

Strong North–South co-operation is now redundant due to the continuing unionist boycott of the North–South institutions, which the British Government did very little to stop. In the same paragraph, the foreign secretary refers to enhanced east–west arrangements between London and Dublin. This is farcical. While it is a reference to something that would be welcome, how many times has the British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference met? How many times has the British–Irish Council been attended by the current and previous Prime Ministers? There is no point in paying lip service.

The foreign secretary states, "Respecting these complexities, the Northern Ireland Protocol was agreed with the best of intentions." When I drew down my mortgage, I did not say to my bank manager that I would sign the papers and commit to the payments with the best of intentions; I did so under a legal obligation. It is pretty obvious what would happen if my wife and I were to miss payments. Ms Truss uses the phrase "after 18 months of trying to make it work". Well, I tell you, 18 months of trying very little is what I have seen.

There have been 18 months of continuous threats of unilateral action and invoking Article 16 from this British Government, involving countless ministers and former ministers. The foreign secretary's predecessor as chief negotiator, Lord Frost, has made it his business to wreck this entire process and the agreement he agreed to, signed and said was one of the best offers. Putting those words in a newspaper is an insult to the intelligence of all the good readers of The Irish Times, including me.

The foreign secretary goes on to talk about how some businesses have given up the trade altogether and how the protocol is presenting so many difficulties. The difficulties presented are due to Brexit and to the fact that the British Government in its realms of political intelligence has decided to pursue the hardest possible Brexit. It has continuously gone for the hardest and most politically based objectives through this process. It is not necessarily the protocol that is not working; it is the fact that a party to the protocol continues to look beyond it.

An area where I do agree is that "The fundamental basis for power-sharing remains strong". We welcome the huge election results in Northern Ireland that pave the way for a nationalist First Minister and for the huge soaring middle. That should be reflected on, rather than the voices of a minority of a minority.

Then we go into the area of degrees of concern. Is it the biggest degree of concern for all parties? All parties in Northern Ireland recognise it could be working better, but the majority of parties and of those elected to the Assembly fundamentally believe the protocol is a good thing. No party in Northern Ireland, with the exception of the most extreme people, advocates for the breaking of international law in order to solve the problems.

Then there is a reference to:

... a comprehensive and reasonable solution to deliver on our shared objectives... Our 'green channel' proposal would be backed by a trusted trader scheme to provide the EU with real time commercial data and robust enforcement...

The whole problem is that since the agreement came into force, the EU has not had effective access to data-sharing agreements. With a "trusted trader scheme", we are coming back to alternative arrangements and technological solutions when we see that written down in black and white.

The following is a stark one: the sole preference should be for an agreed solution, but the British Government says it is only a "firm preference". The possibility of breaking international law and acting unilaterally through domestic legislation needs to be taken off the table. Every time we get a speech of warm words or an article meant to be conciliatory it always throws in that sucker punch to the effect that "Well, we'll do what we have to do to get our own way." It is unacceptable in modern diplomacy and grown-up negotiations. The EU has been negotiating trade deals for decades. It knows what it is doing and that responsibilities fall on both parties to all agreements.

In the same paragraph we hear how everything has to come back to the changing of the EU's existing mandate. I keep forgetting because the referendum campaign is so long ago and we have gone through the ideas over and over but I am pretty sure the EU did not come up with Brexit or create this mess that has occupied the hearts and minds of far too many people and caused chaos on this island for over six years. Yet it is always the EU that has to change position and the EU's mandate that is brought into question. It is never the fact that the British Government has gone from winning a referendum by 52% to 48% and talking about never leaving the Single Market, in the words of the current Prime Minister, to going for the hardest possible Brexit. No, it all comes back to the EU and without changes to this mandate we cannot fix the problems. Of course we can fix the problems but the British Government runs away from the most obvious solution of an EU-UK sanitary and phytosanitary, SPS, veterinary agreement because it always comes back to the EU and is nothing to do with Brexit and the responsibility therefor.

Reference is made to "drift or delay". How is it that months on from Commissioner Šefčovič's visit to Northern Ireland and the proposition of a detailed paper containing genuine solutions, we finally have a dismissal from the British Government which demands the EU respond within 72 hours? It is farcical to see "drift or delay" referred to.

I could go through this article 17 times but I want to give way to my colleague. The key point I want to make is that the threats of unilateral action are damaging the relationship this foreign secretary pretends to want to protect.

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