Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and acknowledge his personal commitment to getting this right and the skill he has brought to that. In these elected assemblies of the Oireachtas, we can sometimes allow the negativity from outside to impact on us and sometimes become unwittingly and wrongly self-critical because of it. We should be collectively very proud that one of the great achievements of our political system, the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Government of the day has been the way we have dealt with the Brexit challenge and its potential to damage our country and our relationship with the UK and to cause huge economic and social dislocation and many problems. It is a success for Government in the way it was handled but it is also a success for the entire Oireachtas in the way that there was a co-operative spirit and a willingness to work together to achieve that outcome. We should take collective pride in that. It has been one of the great successes. When we are confronted with negativity, as we often are and to which we often allow ourselves wrongly to succumb, we should hold our shoulders high and stand tall and proud of what we have done. It is one of the great successes of contemporary times. It had enormous potential to destroy us on so many fronts and still presents huge challenges, obviously.

As the Minister stated, the omnibus legislation from last year put in place contingency measures to address issues that would arise if there had been no deal. Since then, we have had the withdrawal agreement and the protocols on Ireland, all of which brings about the avoiding of a hard border, which is the success I alluded to earlier. It allows access for Northern Ireland goods to the Single Market. The UK Internal Market Bill offends and challenges that but we have to hope and work to ensure that sanity will prevail in the end. Let us pray that we have an agreement. I am confident that we will have an agreement on the premise that self-interest on both sides of the Irish Sea dictates the need for an agreement. The results of a non-agreement have huge negative economic implications for the UK, as they have for this country. That collective self-interest will have to prevail. Our self-interest is being negotiated by the EU team and the UK are negotiating their own self-interest. Sanity will have to prevail. I know from reading about it and informally chatting to the Minister as we entered the Chamber that fishing remains a very big issue. It is big for this country but we have to pray that a compromise will be reached. The Government is preparing for two scenarios, that is, a limited agreement and a hard Brexit. A total free trade agreement with everything agreed would be the optimum outcome but it may be more limited.New controls and procedures will be necessary. A good deal of preparatory work has been done, all of which has been detailed by the Minister, but it is being supported strongly by the Government with the €20 million in the July jobs stimulus package and the budget 2021 commitment in excess of €300 million. There are 1,500 additional staff at airports and ports, which is a significant change and investment.

The omnibus Bill, which I am proud to support and hope, as the Minister does, will receive the support of the House on patriotic grounds, has 21 Parts. The withdrawal agreement and the protocol on Ireland already deal with many of the issues but the fundamental purpose of the Bill is to protect our citizens, consumers and businesses, reduce the possibility of serious economic consequences and look after key sectors. The Bill will allow for co-operation in healthcare between Ireland and the UK, which is very important, and in terms of student mobility, which is welcome. I have many examples of that, which all Members could cite, such as the Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, grants to students studying in the UK and UK students studying here. Social welfare is important because many emigrants who have returned from the UK are on social welfare payments and many citizens in the UK are on various social welfare payments so a continuity in that regard is crucial, as well as reciprocity. That is achieved by the Bill.

The insolvency issue is important for workers here because many people go abroad for insolvency purposes. Mutual recognition in the annulments and divorce area is very important. The childcare provisions and the taxation measures set out are important also. It is welcome that we have the extra time to make VAT returns. The support for the customs online service and the cross-border bus services is welcome also.

I would like the Minister to respond on the fear around congestion. Before I came into the House, I read some newspaper extracts from recent weeks. One of the issues cited in newspaper articles is the risk of congestion at our ports. At present, 6,000 heavy vehicles go through Dublin Port every day. At peak times in the morning, 400 heavy vehicles go through the port tunnel. That has the potential for major congestion and the possible back-up of traffic to the M50. Assurances from the Minister on that in his concluding remarks in terms of a strategy to deal with it would be appreciated.

I ask the Minister to respond to another issue I came across as I read a few articles before coming into the House for the debate. It is the risk to the existing health arrangements whereby the now famous buses bring people to the North for various surgeries under the cross-border healthcare initiative. It has been a very successful scheme and I would be interested to know whether there is a threat to that. If so, are there contingency plans in place and what assurances can he give in that respect?

All of us are conscious of the famous fish and chips issue that came up last night and the threat to Irish chips. One could look at that in a light-hearted fashion but it is indicative of the level of interaction, threat and danger the entire Brexit process brings and its potential to cause upheaval here. That is a serious issue also, certainly for that sector.

I am delighted that the Bill sets out to protect our citizenry to the maximum degree possible, in other words, to maintain the status quoto the greatest degree possible and to avoid threats. There were existential threats at the outset to agriculture, food and the Border community. I could go on about that. Senator Craughwell, who is present, and I were on the previous Brexit committee together and we invited in all the sectoral interests at that time for meetings. That was a previous special committee and the next one will get under way under Senator Chambers. I look forward to working with that committee. All the issues arising in this debate will arise in that forum also. At the committee of which Senator Craughwell and I were members, the sectoral interests appeared and outlined their troubles. Effectively, it was a type of Armageddon in its worst form. That is the reason this Bill is so important.

There is not much more to be said other than that I am enthusiastic about the Bill. I look forward to the Minister's response to the few issues I raised. I am glad that we are putting money and staff into this project to try to make it work. We have to hope. As I have done in many instances at the Council of Europe and through informal contact with members of the UK delegation, we should appeal from this Chamber to our friends in the UK to please do a deal on this one and try to maintain normality, not only for us but for their own citizenry.