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

I want to use this opportunity to try to speak directly to the Unionist community in Northern Ireland. I want to say to them that we in the Irish Government and, I can assure them, in the EU also, within the European Commission, want to respond to their legitimate concerns in regard to how the protocol is implemented and the need to make a clear distinction between goods that are staying within the United Kingdom, travelling from Great Britain into Northern Ireland and being purchased and consumed there. I believe there is a landing zone here, if there was to be good faith on both sides in terms of approaching a negotiation with a view to finding a common landing ground which would involve compromise on both sides, compromise that I believe the EU has already shown and is willing to continue to show.

The problem now is that we have legislation published which asks of the EU things that the British Government knows the EU cannot accept, and effectively sets aside the protocol and disapplies it deliberately. That cannot be the basis of negotiation. What is needed now is for the British Government to make a decision to step back and to actually try to rebuild some trust with Ireland and with the EU. In my view, it is possible to solve a significant amount of the issues that have been raised, predominantly by the Unionist community and business leaders in Northern Ireland, in terms of how we approach this issue in the future.

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