Dáil debates

Wednesday, 22 July 2020

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed)

Northern Ireland

1:00 pm

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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1. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his meeting with the First Minister and deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly. [16816/20]

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I had a very positive meeting with the Northern Ireland First Minister and deputy First Minister at Stormont Castle on Thursday, 16 July, on my first visit to Northern Ireland since taking office. We discussed the importance of North-South and east-west relations on these islands and I stressed the Government's commitment to working closely with the democratic institutions in Northern Ireland and with the UK Government as co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement. We spoke about the progress made in tackling Covid-19 by our respective Administrations and the great challenges that remain. We agreed we would continue to work together on this, including through the memorandum of understanding between our respective Ministers for Health and Chief Medical Officers, and that we would closely monitor issues relating to international travel. In addition, we agreed to hold a plenary meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council in Dublin on 31 July to discuss the many important issues of common interest and concern across this island.

I also took the opportunity to speak to the First Minister and deputy First Minister about the shared island unit that I am setting up in the Department of the Taoiseach, as set out in our programme for Government. I stressed our commitment to working with all communities and traditions on the island to build consensus around a shared future. We also considered the latest position on the Brexit negotiations and agreed to work closely together on the many related issues of mutual concern.

During my visit to Belfast, I also met the leadership of the other parties in the Executive, namely, the SDLP, the Alliance Party and the Ulster Unionist Party. In each meeting, we had very useful discussions on the same issues I covered with the First Minister and deputy First Minister. I also took the opportunity to call on the UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis MP, who was in Stormont on the day of my visit.

1:10 pm

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Taoiseach for the answer. It is a very welcome development that the North-South Ministerial Council will meet next week. I hope the value of the forum is now widely understood. It is true to say the North-South Ministerial Council and the all-Ireland infrastructure has been neglected for quite some time. I hope the Taoiseach's engagement with the institutions in the North and all the political parties will be positive and forward-looking. I hope that next week, when the North-South Ministerial Council meets, we can finally get some level of coherence in an all-Ireland approach to this Covid-19 emergency.

It should be recalled that for the purposes of animal health, this island operates as a single unit and it is, quite frankly, inexplicable that when it comes to human health, there is controversy around adopting the same approach. My colleague, joint First Minister, Ms Michelle O'Neill, raised her concerns relating to the all-Ireland approach with the Taoiseach in his meeting with her. She specifically instanced with the Taoiseach the area of travel and protections for the island. She informed me of this.

My observation, for what it is worth, is that the previous Government in its caretaker capacity was extremely passive in dealing with the North and the necessity for a single island approach for public health safety. I hope passivity will not be this Government's modus operandibecause we need it to be energetic. We need the impetus to come from Dublin to ensure we get the correct approach. By the way, that does not mean throwing brickbats at Sinn Féin. The Taoiseach may do that if he wishes but I remind him there are five parties to the Executive in the North. That means when he meets representatives of the Alliance Party, the SDLP, the Ulster Unionist Party and others, it is incumbent on the Taoiseach to make the case very strongly of the absolute necessity for the correct island-wide approach to protect the health of our people.

This is not a question of the constitutional issue or really even a jurisdictional matter in the wider sense. This is about public health, biology and a virus that must be contained across the island. The truth is that for any of us to be safe on this island, all of us must be safe.

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is why we must engage constructively and in a genuine way with all concerned, accepting the reality that we are talking about two different jurisdictions, regardless of whether we like that being the case. I have been very straightforward in this regard. I will not be politically partisan in my approach to issues of the North and the Good Friday Agreement. I have made that clear to both the First Minister and deputy First Minister. I made it clear in my public announcements in the North.

I do not want to be in any way partisan on Covid-19 matters if we can avoid that. However, the United Kingdom took a particular path and the North went with that, allowing travel to 59 countries. We discussed in a very reasonable way the need to have oversight and keep an eye on the impact of this. The more important point is that we want to be as coherent as possible on public health. We also want to activate the North-South agenda as part of the Good Friday Agreement and the New Decade, New Approach agreement. There has been a welcome development on the public health side with the memorandum between both chief medical officers, who are in touch, and we need to keep that level of engagement going.

With the North-South process, there are significant infrastructural commitments on behalf of the Irish Government and, as Taoiseach, I want to follow those through proactively and energetically. I will do that. I also want to see how we can create new momentum within existing North-South bodies and look at other areas where greater collaboration could happen. One of those areas in which I am interested is health, and we have discussed that with other parties, for example, in terms of paediatric health, the national children's hospital, the capacity to take an all-island approach with heart surgery or other major diseases or rare situations that would need a population-based approach on the island to justify certain health services, and the continuation of the cancer treatment service at Altnagelvin for patients in Donegal and that hinterland.

There is much ground that can be covered on a practical level without becoming embroiled in any political rows. There is much work to get on with that is practical and that would be to the mutual benefit of people living on the island in the North and in the Republic. That is how I intend to approach the North-South Ministerial Council in discussing the health issue among other matters.

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Of course that ought to be the case. It is no great surprise that Sinn Féin and I are very much seeking to advance the case of an all-Ireland approach. I hope the Taoiseach will take my comment in the spirit in which it is intended because this is a constructive observation. The Taoiseach cannot on one hand look to the North and say we can see what it has done because Britain has a particular position and it has gone along with it. The island is partitioned and that is why we feel the long or invisible hand, at times, of British influence on the island.

We cannot simply rely on the memorandum of understanding and I am well aware that such a memorandum exists. I am also well aware that it is insufficient for our purposes. One cannot stand back passively and say it is a different jurisdiction while at the same time advance the case that I hope the Taoiseach is advancing that for the purposes of public health, we are a single epidemiological unit. The Taoiseach must make up his mind and this must be grounded in science, data and evidence etc. All this evidence points to the fact that for this island to be safe, we do not need oversight or a distant set of observations but rather an all-Ireland approach.

At the North-South Ministerial Council, and both before and after it, will the Taoiseach actively pursue that approach? This would be instead of simply making observations or citing in the Dáil how there have been phone calls from one chief medical officer to another. I would expect that to happen but it is not enough. We need a coherent single island approach. Will the Taoiseach work actively for that?

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I must say to the Deputy that she cannot have it both ways. I do not want to throw brickbats across the House on these matters but Sinn Féin signed off on opening Northern Ireland to 59 states for travel. The Deputy cannot blame the United Kingdom alone for that. People signed off on that in Northern Ireland and this has implications for the Republic. There are two different public health jurisdictions, whether the Deputy likes that or not.

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Taoiseach is a disaster.

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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There is no need for the Deputy to be calling in the good Lord in terms of her responses, but the reality is she cannot have it both ways. She cannot condemn the Government here for being far more conservative than what her party signed up for in the North. I have experience of North-South Ministerial Councils.

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I remember.

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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It was a very positive experience. I worked positively and constructively with ministers from Sinn Féin when I was a Minister with responsibility for education, for example, or health. I worked with the late Mr. Martin McGuinness and Ms Bairbre de Brún. I know how to handle myself in a North-South Ministerial Council. We should avoid trying to politicise this in a partisan way in advance of the meeting. Let us have respect for all who will attend. I can assure the Deputy I will be energetic.

I will raise the public health issues carefully and forcefully in terms of the importance of the all-island approach to public health. We have to work constantly at that. Deputy McDonald will get nowhere if she thinks that by simply hectoring or lecturing people they will all fall in line. I do not believe that approach will work. Taking the public position in advance of the meeting and saying, "It had better be this way or no way" is not the correct approach.

1:20 pm

Photo of Seán Ó FearghaílSeán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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We will move to Question No. 2 from Deputy Mary Lou McDonald.

Photo of Duncan SmithDuncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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On a point of clarification, if another Member wants to come in is it a question of raising one's hand or-----

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy could raise a hand.

Photo of Duncan SmithDuncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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I thank the Taoiseach. I am not that-----