Niall Blaney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. He has had a very busy day already but it is welcome to see him here to discuss this very important issue for our nation.

I would like also to add my congratulations to the Sinn Féin Party on its election results in Northern Ireland, and similarly to the DUP and the Alliance Party which had very successful elections, but also offer commiserations to the UUP and the SDLP which did not have elections that they would have liked. That is how elections go. They have a job at hand. They all have a mandate to deliver an Assembly and to make governance work in Northern Ireland for the people who they are elected to represent. I wish everyone well in that regard.

The Fianna Fáil Party will not be opposing this motion. The Sinn Féin Private Members' motion raises some serious concerns which we as a party share in relation to the provision for an electronic travel authorisation scheme in the UK Government's new Nationality and Borders Act. However, the difficulty I have with the motion is it is somewhat out of date and does not take into account some important recent developments. We will not get into the difficulties. The general theme behind it is right but the wording in parts of it could have been somewhat different.

Those recent developments include engagement on this issue by the Government at both political and official level, by the Minister here who has been working on this for many years, with the Home Office and the Northern Ireland Office. It has not taken into account statements by the Home Office on the matter on 20 April and the fact that the Act received royal assent on 20 April.

Where the Act still provides for the electronic travel authorisation, ETA, provision which would apply to non-Irish and non-British citizens travelling from the South into Northern Ireland, the Irish Government has received positive indications, as the Minister has outlined, from the Home Office through the Minister, Mr. Kevin Foster, that further discussions can take place in the context of developing secondary legislation and possible exemptions. It is critically important that we keep up that pressure that now exists on the authorities to try to create that secondary legislation that will look at dealing with exemptions that will lead with the Irish position.

I am just after leaving our own parliamentary party meeting where the Taoiseach was updating us on how he, too, has had negotiations with the British Prime Minister, Mr. Boris Johnson, even as late as yesterday on this and many other issues. I am pleased that the Government is very much hands-on in relation to the ETA and also issues such as the protocol and the putting together of a new Executive in Northern Ireland. These are critically important issues to ensure proper governance and the day-to-day workings in Northern Ireland.

The Minister mentioned the protocol. It galls me from day to day to hear UK Ministers and Boris Johnson referring to the EU's unwillingness to move on the protocol. The Minister referenced October. Last year one of the big issues was medicines and through the Minister's negotiations, that and other issues have been resolved. Therefore, we must constantly knock the narrative that the EU is not willing to create the conditions of change. It is actually the opposite to what the British Government is saying; it is their unwillingness to engage.

We need proper engagement from the UK Government. We need proper engagement from Boris Johnson's Government. This playing with words must stop. It is not helpful. It is not serving anybody's purpose. We need proper engagement whereby the British Government is willing to come and look at these issues with a view to resolving them but also with an approach where there is give and take. That has not happened heretofore. We are asking and pushing that they do that.

I wish the Minister well in his engagements over the next few weeks where he endeavours to put the Executive together. I hope that Friday is a successful day because it is really important for all of this island that there is a Government working in Northern Ireland. Issues of the day that affect us on a North-South basis can then be dealt with. Whether it be infrastructure, health or whatever, it is really important. I wish the Minister well.