Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will exercise the old Seanad privilege of saying things that people might not necessarily want to hear. I see myself as a cultural nationalist and I want to add my voice to those paying tribute to the late Austin Currie for all the good work and good things he did.

When we have these discussions we should be aware of groupthink. Dealing with the British authorities is particularly challenging at this time and there are some things that cannot be defended, but we sometimes slip back into an old anti-Britishness in the way we have these discussions as well. Listening to what is going on, there is too much emphasis on the personalities of the people involved in the Northern Ireland protocol and perhaps there is not enough meaningful discussion on the issues that are causing concern. It is a mistake to fall into continuing and persistent criticism of the British Government and I do not see what useful purpose that will serve. It is pretty much a unanimous view within unionism that the Northern Irish protocol in its current format compromises its position. We cannot get away from that but that is how unionists see things. There is no good in us in the South telling them that they ought to see things the way we see them. I do not see a future in such an approach to the problem.

We should be open to considering things that we rarely consider here. Do they have a point about the Court of Justice of the European Union, ECJ, on some level? I get the argument that it has to be supreme but to some degree I also get the argument that is being made by the Poles and others that there is competence creep and that sometimes the court interferes too much. The British Government has seized on this and it questions the efficacy and practicality of the court remaining the ultimate arbiter of important matters. We have had successive citizens' assemblies picking apart the integrity and fabric of the Constitution, but I cannot recall any similar consultation process being invoked in respect of the ECJ. The question of triggering Article 16 on the grounds of "serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties" should provoke a much broader discussion on how the ECJ works because it is common knowledge that the best way to promote delay and the resolution of any legal dispute in the Irish courts is to raise an issue of EU law and have a legal question referred to Luxembourg because one is tactically assured of a considerable delay and considerable expense.

For the purposes of our diplomacy, let us at least attempt to see things from the other side because when this consistent view is being expressed in unionism about the protocol, we are in a difficult situation in how we make our arguments down here.