Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Tánaiste. I want to express my appreciation of his constant engagement with the Houses of the Oireachtas on this matter. I salute him, his officials and the diplomatic service on achieving solidarity with our EU partners and securing their constant support, which is no small achievement for a geographically peripheral country such as ours.

The Good Friday Agreement is an international agreement. It was overwhelmingly endorsed by the people of Ireland, North and South. The Human Rights Act is an integral part of the Good Friday Agreement and the European Court of Human Rights was incorporated into the domestic law of Northern Ireland to become the supreme authority. Under the Equality Commission that was established in Northern Ireland, all forms of discrimination in employment, including on grounds of gender disability or ethnicity, were outlawed, although this may not have been perfectly achieved in the period since the emergence of the Good Friday Agreement. After 2010, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights further enhanced the protection of children, workers, the environment and data. Thankfully, in the British-EU negotiation joint report of 8 December 2017, the UK Government committed to protecting the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts, which means it supports the outlawing of discrimination, maintaining the common travel area and ensuring no hard border, as well as supporting human rights. This is an important commitment and it is vital that we do not become responsible for imposing or enforcing any restrictive immigration policies that could arise later by way of an agreement.

Speaking as a someone who lives in a Border area, it is not alarmist to say that hard frontier, or any regression from the current open arrangement, would put peace at risk on a number of fronts. It would give an impetus to those forces that want to restart violence by providing them with a target. We must have a backstop, but it is a last resort. Our ambition, as a country, is to have a deal in which the UK enters into the closest possible agreement with the EU. We want that for our own sake and for that of the UK. The two islands need to be as integrated as possible within the EU.

A market of 500 million people is not something the UK should eschew. While it might seem worthy to seek new markets within the Commonwealth, the London School of Economics has stated that, when logistics are taken into account, a fivefold increase in trade with those countries would be required in order to achieve the same net return as from trade with the EU.That is taking into account the logistics of travel and transport and all the issues with that.

It is worthy of mention that with almost full employment in the UK and here the question of immigration comes into a new focus. There is a need, particularly in the hospitality and intensive agriculture sectors on both islands, for immigrants, people from outside the EU. Restrictive immigration practices may no longer be an economic option.

I have to race through these points but it is important I make them while the Tánaiste is here. I am very conscious of and happy that we have Brexit preparedness. As someone who comes from a Border county, I make the point the change here with fluctuations in currency - no matter how ideal the new agreement is and we pray that it will be - there will still be difficulties for the local economies in Northern Ireland and the Republic. Fluctuations in currencies and various other issues which will create new pressures. I was happy that there was €44 million in direct aid to farmers in the last budget, that there is an improvement in the area of natural constraint with a new payment of €23 million and that there are 27 capital programmes for the food industry, etc. There is a whole range of budgetary measures in agriculture and the food sector. I will not chronicle them all but it is an impressive and an important list. I would like to hear the Tánaiste say when summing up that he sees this as a budgetary process that will continue over the coming years and that we will insulate Border industries and agriculture in the Border areas and support agriculture and food production in a way that any changes in currency or difficulties that may arise in trading or additional costs would not cause the loss of jobs or the displacement of people as a result. That is important. As I said, this is a last resort situation.

We are anxious to maintain good UK-Ireland relationships, which are important. We have a community on these islands that should be maintained and a community of interests and cultural and kinsmanship links. I am very proud to be vice president of the one international assembly where the UK and Ireland will jointly work together, which is the Council of Europe. This attaches great importance to our work on the Council of Europe. We have had a number of bilateral meetings there with UK delegates to the Council of Europe. My good friend Senator Leyden was a distinguished former member of that assembly and was present when we had joint functions, some of which I initiated, with the Irish and British delegations to ensure a continuation of good relations and that they understood our position and did not see us as people who were trying to be antagonistic but rather people who wanted to protect the relationship. We cannot overemphasise the point - this was alluded to by Senator Marshall - that the best interest of the people of the UK is served by the closest possible trading arrangement and cultural and human links with the EU. One would not need a PhD in economics to understand that that is the case and naturally our best interest is served by that as well.

A good day's work has been done so far but I would like to hear the Tánaiste say that we will be holding the line on the backstop and that the whole process of alleviating the difficulty that may be faced by the food sector, by agriculture and by industry in this country will be costed in budgets to come.