Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That was important.

When Brexit was discussed a few years ago, there was a sense of it being Armageddon, in particular in the region I come from. There was a fear that we would have a hard border and that the Good Friday Agreement would be in peril. There was also a fear of a return to violence in the country and east-west tariffs and customs. It was a very bleak scenario. It is a great tribute to the Government, the Minister and the diplomatic services, and to all of us in our own roles, in that when we went abroad, we all did our piece and worked one to one and bilaterally as much as we could.

However, it was a particular achievement of the Government and the diplomatic service that we got to the current point. While we are now fixated on the protocol, we should recognise what has been achieved. It is significant that we have succeeded in having the common trade agreement, removing tariffs and customs between the EU and the UK, and also putting in place the protocol which allows for smooth east-west trade and allows goods from Northern Ireland into the UK smoothly and without any tariffs or interruptions. That is a significant achievement. The protocol is central to preserving the Good Friday Agreement and the livelihoods of people right across Northern Ireland. We often talk about the protocol as a theoretical or abstract construct, almost as something legalistic, but there is a reality here in that without the protocol there would have been significant unemployment in the Border area including in this country.It would have been a tremendous blow to agriculture and would have paralysed the food processing sector right along the Border had we not had the protocol in place. For that reason the successful implementation of the protocol is necessary. While it is an international and legally binding agreement and treaty, our Government's ambition, and certainly it is my view and the view of all members of the select committee and all Members of this House, is that we should be conciliatory and negotiate and a consensus should emerge.

Commissioner Maroš Šefovi's proposals before Christmas across a number of areas, including veterinary, and across 80% of the difficulties, are a real effort to reach consensus. As alluded to by the Minister, we notice a more positive environment in recent months and weeks. We hope Ms Truss, the UK Foreign Secretary, and Commissioner Šefovi will reach agreement. It is good that the technical talks are continuing apace.

We have both the trade and co-operation agreement and the protocol. That is important as it prevents the need for checks on goods between Northern Ireland and the Republic, allows free trade across the Border, unencumbered access to the UK and ensures the integrity of the Single Market. It is worthy of notice that the business community and civil society in Northern Ireland are ahead of our political leadership on this issue to the degree that they recognise the opportunity this presents for Northern Ireland to prosper. It has created a new dynamic on the island of Ireland because of the great increase in trade, notably North-South and vice versa. That trade increase is important and something we should welcome.

The Minister might comment when summing up on progress on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications. It has been achieved over a number of them but not completely. I was glad to hear the Minister's remarks on the healthcare directive. That has been one of the great successes. I know, as we all do from our constituency work and from dealing with people in our area, that it has been taken up, used a good deal and it works very smoothly. It is important that would continue. A point that was constantly made by the Chair of our committee during our deliberations was that it would receive further modification to make it make it easier to access and to overcome the financial difficulty some people have in accessing the money initially in order to pay for treatment. Perhaps there could be engagement with credit unions to address the difficulty some people have in coming up with the money initially. There must be a mechanism to ensure there is no fraud around the use of the money. Hopefully, that issue could be addressed. That is an important point. It is also important in the context of continuing co-operation on the island that we achieve educational co-operation between third level institutions, North and South. I look forward to Minister's remarks on some of those issues.

One could say Brexit is a retrograde step and that the EU has been the greatest peace process in that this has been a tremendously successful peace process at a European level. It has brought tremendous benefits not only to this country but right across Europe and particularly to vulnerable and less well off areas. It has created great opportunity. The EU is a great project. It is such a tragedy we have lost Britain for the moment. Britain was a great ally of ours within the Council of Ministers and all the EU bodies. It was a pity to lose that but we have to work from where we are at.I hope we will see agreements around the protocol in the coming weeks and, as the Minister said, that this will well precede the elections in Northern Ireland.