Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the ambassadors who are here today. I am honoured that the UK ambassador wants to be here to hear what I have to say about the Windsor Framework. In all seriousness, I welcome the framework and thank all the stakeholders who have brought us this far. It is now under scrutiny by the main parties, which are looking at what lies beneath. I understand that is going to take time. I hope we are able to focus on the overall benefits, such as the dual market access for a region that has been held back by its past and by dysfunctional politics, the opportunity to focus on North-South institutions that have been neglected, and resetting the British-Irish relationship. It shows us what happens when the policy of brinkmanship and unilateralism is abandoned and we engage in negotiation in good faith and in compromise.

It remains to be seen whether the DUP will align with that approach. The idea there would be a strict adherence in unionism to the idea that Northern Ireland should be treated the same as every other part of the UK does not fundamentally align with the Good Friday Agreement. That has not brought us progress in the past. It might suit unionist ideology, but it does not make Northern Ireland work in the way it should. That is why I am pleased any veto does have strict terms and conditions that come with it. There has been a lot of lingo used over recent years, including "the backstop" and "get Brexit done". Now, we have the Stormont brake. I am going to borrow a phrase from another crisis we have lived with. I hope that, at this point, we are now moving to a place where we can now live with Brexit.