Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, our colleague, Senator Feighan, referred to a visit to London earlier this week of a delegation from the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs and the Seanad Special Select Committee on the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. The group was comprised of Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, Senators Richmond, O'Reilly, Black, Mark Daly and myself. I was honoured to be part of the delegation which met some very interesting people, notably the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Mr. David Lidington, who is an interesting man. Ireland has some great friends in the Labour Party, including the Members of Parliament, Hilary Benn, Conor McGinn and Keir Starmer. We also had informative meetings with the chairpersons of various committees. We were scheduled to meet Mr. David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union but he was indisposed. However, we met his under-secretary of state, a most interesting lady. We invited all those we met to visit Ireland, specifically the Border region, and I believe they will all take up our invitation. Some of those who have visited the Border already intend visiting again.

It is helpful that the Labour Party in Britain has formally adopted a policy of maintaining a customs union. This approach could assist the minority Government of Prime Minister Theresa May who is experiencing difficulties because she presides over a divided Cabinet and party. We met people on all sides of the Conservative Party. I do not believe the British wish to ignore the European market of 500 million people. Negotiations towards alignment will proceed slowly but we must be patient. I believe some form of customs partnership will ultimately be agreed, perhaps as late as October.We do not know what it will be called but it will be as close as it can to alignment between the UK and the EU. Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker intends to visit Ireland and I reiterate the call to the Leader to have him invited to address the House. Commissioner Phil Hogan is coming and will address us in due course. They are very informative people. The visits we undertook are very important to maintain and improve relations and we did achieve that.