Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the outset I welcome my colleague and friend, the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy. I congratulate him on his elevation and wish him well in the Ministry. I know from his radio interviews that he has a very high level of competence, which, no doubt, will reflect itself in this Department also.

One of the great problems in recent months has been that the entire Brexit debate has been overshadowed by the Covid pandemic, which has taken the Brexit issue away from the media. All focus has been on Covid as the source of all ills. Masked within that is the very real Brexit issue. The two together are an absolute horror. It is a real difficulty.

The United Kingdom Internal Market Bill has been well discussed here. It is clearly a breach of international law. It sends a shocking signal to the citizenry of the UK and must undermine faith in democracy and in the rule of law. It is interesting that in places where the UK would expect to find allies, such as in America, it has been condemned outright by American lawmakers, indeed as it had been by British lawmakers. All living former UK Prime Ministers have condemned it, as have the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and the putative US President, Mr. Biden. It has not gained acceptance anywhere.

I have no doubt Senator Ó Donnghaile will be very quick to make this point about the peace agreement.Leaving aside anything about trade, money and commerce, the serious thing about the Good Friday Agreement is that we are talking about lives, parity of esteem, and the real lives of people. A hard border in Ireland will be a catalyst for future violence and will set the peace process back enormously. That is a shocking reality. To use the cliché, it is an appalling vista we do not want to contemplate but it would be a dreadful by-product.

I have always had a level of optimism about Brexit on the basis that British self-interest would ultimately prevail, and that whatever clear and open contempt - very sad, though not universal - certain elements of the Tory party might have for the well-being of this island and its people, their own self-interest would prevail. Coupled with the pandemic, it threatens the UK economy hugely. The London School of Economics calculates the UK would have to get five times the trade out in the old Commonwealth to compensate for the loss of trade with the mainland of Europe. It is madness from an economic point of view and they have a very challenged economy as it is. I hope that in the remaining 21 days that that kind of self-interest will prevail.

We should alert any interest in the UK to that in any way we can. When, as a member of the Council of Europe, we had bilaterals with the UK delegation to get this done on an informal basis, I used to go to great trouble to say to them that their self-interest was at issue as much as ours. It is a point that was not lost on a number of them but, sadly, there are elements there who are ignoring it. If we can yet get a free trade deal and sanity prevails, these issues would be resolved and the stand-off would end. The Internal Market Bill would be an irrelevance at that point. If we could get a no-tariffs trade deal, it would have huge implications.

I addressed the peace element a minute ago and the lives of people, which are of paramount importance, as they are with Covid. Similarly, a hard border has huge implications for the Border region and for agriculture and agriculture-related businesses such as Silver Hill Foods, which have talked about a 40% drop. It would be devastating all across the Border region. It has the capacity even to dislocate businesses like Lakeland Dairies, which is the crucial employer in my own home town. The potential to do devastation is enormous.

In that context I will be saying to our Minister that, God forbid that the doomsday scenario would prevail, which is such an insane prospect that eventually some level of sanity will enter and we may at the eleventh hour come back from the brink, but if we do not and we have something akin to a hard Brexit or even a partial deal, then we will have to get a serious solidarity package from Europe to keep cohesion in the economies of Europe and keep the Border region and all of this country functioning. I say to the Minister of State there must be preparation to negotiate that and working towards it has to be paramount. Just as we must have Brexit readiness, as the Minster alluded to earlier, we also have to be ready to negotiate and get a solidarity package. It will be necessary that we get such a package to maintain the cohesion of the EU. Otherwise we will become very impoverished, dislocated and have mass unemployment and societal breakdown as a result. We must get such a package should that situation arise.

I was always a believer in the half-full glass rather than the half-empty one. I welcome the motion, which is good and timely, and it is an important debate. I agree with Senator Norris that the Official Report of this debate should be sent to all interested parties in the UK in the hope that it might influence somebody. There is no reason it should not.The debate is good. The motion is excellent and timely and I support it, but I still believe the UK will not allow its economy to be destroyed. Another corollary is the break-up of the union. It would be a shocking irony or paradox that a Tory Prime Minister would supervise that. One has to pray that some level of reason will prevail at the eleventh hour.