Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for his great work on this issue. He has put in many hours of work in compiling the report and putting together the contributions of all the witnesses, which has been very beneficial to the House.

This report has highlighted issues that other committees have not been able to highlight and I want to touch on a few of those issues. One that came to our attention concerns the US airline industry. I was in the US Congress two weeks ago and found that the members of Congress have not discussed Brexit or how it affects the US. This is amazing, particularly given the position of the airline industry. US airlines use Heathrow as their hub and, of course, various EU airports such those at Paris, Berlin and Schiphol are trying to take all that business away from Heathrow. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity for all of that industry to be moved away from Heathrow. This has a huge knock-on effect on the US in terms of the purchase of airlines and aircraft by its airline industry, but also in regard to US companies which sell not just to Britain, but to France, Spain and so on, products that are then sent on to Britain.

The lesson in that for Ireland is that we need to utilise our contacts in the US to make sure the US puts pressure on Britain to seek to make sure the status quowill be accepted, as best as can be arranged. What Britain is looking for, which is ironic in itself, is to make Brexit a success. This is diametrically opposed to the view in Europe, where the EU has to make sure Brexit is not a success because, if it is a success for Britain, then other members of the EU might say, "It worked so well for Britain, why do we not leave too?" I believe Britain will learn very quickly that Brexit is not going to be a success. In fact, the EU is going to make sure it is a failure. However, we have to utilise our connections in the US to inform the Americans not only about the effects of Brexit on Ireland, including the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement, but also about the overall effects Brexit will have on the US economy in terms of its trade with Britain, its airline industry and its follow-on trade in terms of selling to EU countries that also trade with Britain.

The airline industry aspect is curious because, obviously, Ireland is one of the three issues that have to be resolved or advanced before there is any talk of a trade deal between Britain and the EU. The airline link between London and Dublin is the second busiest route between capital cities in the world, second only to the Taipei-Beijing route. Therefore, the open skies policy has to be part of that agreement, which would solve the overall European open skies policy. However, we will be left at a huge competitive disadvantage if our air bridge to London and, therefore, to the greater world is cut off or uncertain.

Second, it was amazing to see the Central Bank representatives sitting here in the House, telling us that, even though it had appointed someone 12 months previously in order to be Brexit-ready, it had no idea what other European central banks were doing in regard to Brexit.It was adamant that, because of the financial crisis, it was no longer going to be an agency trying to sell Ireland as a location for financial institutions, and it was simply going to be a regulator. It did not know what the Belgians were doing or what Luxembourg was doing. They would have known if they had bothered to telephone anyone in the insurance industry or any other banks. The next witnesses to come in told us that the Government in Luxembourg and its central bank are actively selling their country as a location for financial institutions. Our Central Bank does not only not do it, but did not know what the others were doing. It is a shocking indictment that our own Central Bank - while we are talking about financial institutions - has not changed its policy. It is not a European policy, but its own policy. It has changed the policy and needs to change it again.

On Northern Ireland, we had the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality here talking about Northern Ireland and the Border. We discussed the issue of the free movement of people across the Border in the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. That is entirely up to Britain. It is up to Britain as to whether it puts checkpoints on its side of the Border. We do not have to and it is up to us as to whether we do. It is for the United Kingdom to decide what to do on its side of the Border. That is because Northern Ireland could be used as a backdoor into Britain and those concerned are fearful of people flying into Dublin, going to the North and then going to Britain.

The simple solution is for the UK to upscale Operation Gull. Operation Gull is a tragically racist policy whereby people getting onto aeroplanes in Derry and Belfast and the ships in Larne are profiled to see if they are likely to be non-EU nationals trying to get into Britain through the backdoor. Some 792 people have been arrested under that policy in Northern Ireland. We say that if the United Kingdom wants to secure its border, that is the place to do it. There is no point in trying to put 40,000 troops back on the Border again, such as in the Troubles. The Border could not even be sealed when lives were on the line. Now that it is an immigration issue, there is no point in stopping 40,000 people trying to go over and back across the Border to work and to school every day. Implement Operation Gull and do immigration checks between Northern Ireland and Britain, as was done between 1939 and 1952. For political reasons, the DUP says that it is not going to accept internal border checks within Northern Ireland. It is a simple solution to a practical problem but unfortunately, politics is the issue that might stop it.

I thank the clerk to the select committee and all the staff involved, and all the witnesses who came in. We agreed with some and disagreed with others. Their information and insight are valuable. The airline industry matter is something that we need to use. We need to assist our colleagues in the United States, and to highlight to our colleagues there that we need to work together with them to ensure that the deal that Britain gets is in our best interests as a country, and in the best interests of the United States.

I ask the Minister of State to engage with the Central Bank again and for it to stop its high-minded, holier-than-thou attitude by engaging with the City of London and financial institutions which are looking to other European countries, and to compete with the central banks in Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, which are all going out to sell their countries. Ours is doing nothing by comparison. When we look back at this in a few years' time and ask why companies did not locate in Ireland, the critical issue will be that of the Central Bank not selling Ireland as a location.

In the 1950s, Britain was unable to retain control of the Suez Canal. That was its end of empire moment. Every country under its control was then able to say that Britain was no longer a world power. Brexit is now its economic version of a Suez Canal moment. Britain is no longer an economic power. It has done itself harm by withdrawing from the biggest trading bloc the world has ever seen, and has now decided to make Brexit a success. The tragedy for us is that while Brexit will not be a success for the UK, it will do serious damage to Ireland,. However, there are things that we can do now that are within our own capability and that we should do to make sure that we take advantage of what can be taken advantage of and bring what businesses here we can and to act where it is in our capacity to take advantage of Britain's failure.