Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber. I also thank the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, which has given us an update on and very informative assistance with this motion. I thank the Fianna Fáil Senators for proposing the motion. We in the Labour Party will support it at what is a very difficult time, but we feel we need to address a number of other important points, which I will outline later.

The simple facts are the outright failure of the British Prime Minister to uphold the withdrawal agreement he signed on behalf of the British people and the disingenuous, utterly dishonest and fundamental breach of faith on the part of the British Government. Boris Johnson wants to tear up this deal and replace it with his Internal Market Bill. There is no doubt in my mind or the minds of many people watching this unfold that the British Prime Minister is simply hoping and positioning for a no-deal Brexit.

We are all heartened by the support of major political figures in the US for the withdrawal agreement. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who it is to be hoped will be the next US President, warned that the 1998 peace agreement could not become "a casualty of Brexit". In a recent tweet I read, he quoted a copy of a letter sent to Boris Johnson by Congressman Richie Neal, chairman of the trade deal-approving House Committee on Ways and Means, and three other prominent US members of Congress with a very similar message. We also welcome recent comment from the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who repeated that there would be no US-UK trade deal if the Belfast Agreement were compromised, warning London, "Don't mess with the Good Friday accords."

However, the political opposition to the position Boris Johnson has adopted is not confined to the US. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has said the EU will "never backtrack" on the Brexit withdrawal agreement. In a strong intervention during her state of the Union speech, President von der Leyen told the European Parliament:

[This withdrawal] agreement took three years to negotiate and we worked relentlessly on it. Line by line, word by word.

And together we succeeded. The result guarantees our citizens' rights, financial interests, the integrity of the Single Market - and crucially [and most importantly] the Good Friday Agreement.

The EU and UK jointly agreed it was the best and only way for ensuring peace on the island of Ireland.

And we will never backtrack on that. This agreement has been ratified by this House and the House of Commons.

Thankfully, she concluded:

It cannot be unilaterally changed, disregarded or dis-applied. This is a matter of law, trust and good faith.

We also heard last week that the appointed finance ministers of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have warned of "collective concerns" over the impact of the UK's Internal Market Bill on funding for the devolved administrations. They said the Bill allows the UK Government to undertake spending in devolved areas, including for replacement EU funding, without any engagement with the devolved nations and this could have an impact on future consequential funding agreements.

The Internal Market Bill, which passed committee stage in the House of Commons yesterday, gives the UK Government the power to change part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, a move, as colleagues have said, that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, said would "break international law", although, as he stated, in a very specific and limited way. At the last count, five former British Prime Ministers have come out in opposition to the Bill and the road Boris Johnson is trying to take the British people down.

We must do more than agree to condemn the British Prime Minister for attempting to break international law. The Government must not leave our State isolated and ill-prepared for a no-deal Brexit or any version of the international agreement the United Kingdom may want to impose. We are just over three months away from the proposed start date of the withdrawal agreement. Time is against us, and the Government and this country must be prepared.

As some colleagues have said, the Government must invest immediately in direct routes to countries such as Spain, France, Belgium and Holland. The possibility of a no-deal Brexit or a limited trade deal agreement would be catastrophic for Irish exporters and importers and all associated businesses.

Within the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund there is a specific connectivity fund which we should be using now to develop immediately direct sea routes from the island of lreland to continental Europe. While most of the infrastructure has been built in Dublin, Cork and Rosslare Europort, capacity has not been built or kept up to the same manner. We need additional providers and more vessels to develop new routes, and the Government needs to focus all its energy on developing that vital link now. We cannot wait until the UK land bridge is closed or contemplate the possible or the undoubted delays that will come with a no-deal Brexit or a limited trade deal. Such delays will make conducting business almost impossible.The president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, Eugene Drennan, recently outlined that 150,000 Irish lorries used the landbridge every year. Almost 40% of Irish exports and 13% of imports, in terms of value and volume, pass over this key transit route every year. More than 80% of roll-on roll-off lorries using Irish ports every year go through UK ports, with the remainder going on direct routes to continental Europe. The value of the trade crossing the landbridge was €18 billion in exports and €3 billion in imports in 2016, according to a 2018 report compiled by the Irish Maritime Development Office. Given the pandemic and the need to export Irish manufactured goods and get vital imports in, we can only assume that this figure has increased substantially. We call on the Government to use this Ireland Strategic Investment Fund now. Let us develop these routes and keep Ireland's trade lines open, rather than adopting a wait-and-see attitude when it could be too late.

We must also look at the consequences of a no-deal Brexit on our position on the edge of Europe, and the important role our Defence Forces, particularly the Naval Service, will have to play in protecting that. I also read the article in the Irish Examinerto which another Senator referred and which indicated that because of the continuing manpower crisis in the Naval Service, a number of ships were delayed in putting to sea because of a shortage of specialist crew members. The most recent episode in this regard involved the LÉ Niamhand occurred two weeks ago. As an island nation, we cannot have a situation whereby our Naval Service is not able to put its vessels to sea and continue the great work it does in protecting our coastlines and our State.

The Minister must address the continued exit of personnel from the Naval Service. Reports in the same newspaper indicated that more crew members are considering their futures. The importance of the job that our Naval Service means that there must be urgent intervention on the part of the Government. The important and additional work that the Naval Service, and our Defence Forces in general, will be expected to do in the case of a no-deal Brexit or one that involves a limited trade deal must be urgently considered by the Government. It is simply beyond time that the pay and conditions of the members of our Defence Forces are addressed.

The current line from the British Prime Minister that there was a misunderstanding about the contents of the withdrawal agreement, specifically in the context of state aid, and the need for customs declarations on goods coming in to Northern Ireland, is disingenuous to say the least. When he endorsed the deal, it was explicitly understood that in order to preserve the uniqueness of Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement, goods coming into Northern Ireland would need to be the subject of some form of checks because they are effectively coming into the EU Single Market. There can be no doubt that this is a deliberate ploy by Boris Johnson to collapse the ongoing trade talks in the hope that this unprovoked provocation by the

Government he leads will cause the EU to simply walk away.

We support the motion. We all know that a no-deal Brexit or a compromised trade deal will have serious economic implications for the UK and, more importantly, for Ireland. It is not enough for us to just condemn this madness. The Government must prepare to deal with the fallout from the madness of the UK Government and deal with it urgently.